Sharing of Cable Modem between Mac & PC

[jb99]

This has probably been asked and answered already.

My daughter has a Mac and her daughter has a PC. What does it take for them to share a cable modem? Their computers both have an Ethernet card.
I read about Routers, Switches and Hubs, but have not found (yet) a clear, concise, and, more importantly, descriptive article that would show how to 'properly' do this.

1- They would like to each have their own email address. The cable company provides up to 5 addresses.
2- Although not an absolute necessity, they would like to be able to browse the internet independently from each other at the same time.
3- And eventually, I presume, they will want to upload, again independently.
4- There is currently no need for their computers to communicate with each other, but would be nice to have this capablity if ever they want to exchange cross platform documents.

By what I have read so far, I undestand that a Hub would not permit items 2, 3 and 4 above. I am not sure if a Switch would do it, may be 1 and 2, possibly 3?. It would appear they need a Router, but do they need other things as well?

Could 2 Cable Modems be used? That would satisfy 1, 2, and 3. Would that result in them having to pay for 2 service fees?

Thanks for any advice.

jb99

[TheAppleDoctor]

I use a Farallon FriendlyNet 3004 LC, which connects 2 Macs and a PC to the internet using a cable modem.

You set the router up (using IE) to use the cable modem. The computers connect to the router using DHCP, the router uses whatever method your ISP (static IP or DHCP) uses. One account. Access from any computer whenever you want, whether someone else is on or not. The connection is shared, but the only time you'll ever see a slowdown caused by you* is if more than one computer is doing a large download (not web pages) at the same time. You can also share files between the comps at the same time.

The LinkSys is good, but I prefer the Farallon... great Mac support, ridiculously easy (about 3 steps) setup... and I can share a 56K modem and/or a parallel printer if I need to.

Set up the various computers to check their respective email accounts and don't worry about the extra internet account... one is all you need. Some companies don't like you to have multiple computers on a single account, because you might actually use a larger portion of the bandwidth that you paid for, and they rely on people not doing that so they can oversell... so just don't tell them. You shouldn't need the cable guy to do anything other than deliver the modem, and run a line if needed.

The router/hub cost right around $125 when I got it.