The Speedsteam 5200 has both an ethernet interface and a USB interface, thus a computer can be connected to each interface port. Generally speaking, when an ISP says you can connect 2 PCs, they mean one PC using the USB port and one PC using the ethernet port. However, each PC would be assigned a public IP address by the ISP and you do not want to enable File and Printer Sharing using public addressing. You would be infected by a virus almost instantaneously. To answer your question, any ethernet hub or switch (think of a switch as a fast hub) would work, but the connecting PCs would receive public addresses. What is the ISP?
A better method to connect your 2 computers would be to use a wired router, such as the Linksys BEFSR41. The router connects to the modem and receives the public address from the ISP. In turn, the router assigns private addresses to the PCs that connect to it and provides firewall protection to the computers on the Local Area Network. Other brands such as D-Link, Belkin and Netgear make similar products.
Take a look at this site and this site for good general networking information as well as implementation tutorials.
_Paladin
795 Posts
0
December 11th, 2003 20:00
Kyndall,
The Speedsteam 5200 has both an ethernet interface and a USB interface, thus a computer can be connected to each interface port. Generally speaking, when an ISP says you can connect 2 PCs, they mean one PC using the USB port and one PC using the ethernet port. However, each PC would be assigned a public IP address by the ISP and you do not want to enable File and Printer Sharing using public addressing. You would be infected by a virus almost instantaneously. To answer your question, any ethernet hub or switch (think of a switch as a fast hub) would work, but the connecting PCs would receive public addresses. What is the ISP?
A better method to connect your 2 computers would be to use a wired router, such as the Linksys BEFSR41. The router connects to the modem and receives the public address from the ISP. In turn, the router assigns private addresses to the PCs that connect to it and provides firewall protection to the computers on the Local Area Network. Other brands such as D-Link, Belkin and Netgear make similar products.
Take a look at this site and this site for good general networking information as well as implementation tutorials.
Post back if you have additional questions.