Sharing your broadband connection is quite common in today’s modern homes and offices. Best way to do this is with a router. Most users pick some type of wireless router in order to set up a wireless network inside their homes which makes their work much more comfortable as you will have Internet access with your computer from anywhere in your home.
What is Router and how does it work? What is LAN?
Broadband connections are shared through a router. A router acts like a modem in most cases that is capable of distributing your broadband to different computers simultaneously. A router is easy to install and set up by following a step-by-step installation process. Once the installation is complete a Local Area Network or LAN will be set up. Local Area Network – LAN is a network formed through the router to connect all the computer in the area that are connected to it (when talking about local area it is usually a home or office). The router distributes the broadband Internet connection to all computers in the network simultaneously. For a computer to be connected to LAN and broadband Internet he must have a LAN card installed and connected to a router by cable or through wireless connection (in this case you will need a wireless LAN card). Local Area Network is password protected thus preventing any unauthorized computers from accessing your network.
With your Local Area Network set you can access the Internet from any of your computers that are connected to it within your home or office, furthermore you will be able to send data from one of your computers to another through that network at a very high speed.
Routers can be used for pretty much any type of broadband connection, but note that for ADSL you will need an ADSL router, for Cable broadband a Cable router etc.
What equipment do I need and where can I find it?
Only equipment you need is a broadband router that is for your type of connection (ADSL, Cable, Mobile etc) and a LAN card or Wireless LAN card for each of the computers you want to connect to it. Keep in mind that most of the computers produced in the last 4-5 years already have LAN cards and most Lap top computers have wireless LAN cards already built in. ISP’s usually have routers in their offers, enquire at your ISP if they have any in their offer. Otherwise you will be able to find one in most of the computer hardware stores. Installation and set up of your router should not take more then 10-15 minutes if you follow the step-by-step procedure.
There is one more option to connecting multiple computers to your broadband connection via a special program installed on the computer with Internet connection, this option however also requires one form of Local Area Network, but in order for it to work the main computer must be turned on in order for others to have Internet access. This type of connection sharing is not recommended and it is out dated.
Using Broadband with More Than one Computer is a post from: Broadband Guide