[GHackmann]

I currently have a Southwestern Bell DSL connection that I want to share over my home network. Since I didn't want to rewire the whole house, I bought HPNA phoneline adapters for all of the computers. Then, I connected the DSL modem (an Efficient Networks SpeedStream 5660) to one of them via a traditional Ethernet card, turned on ICS, and reconfigured all of the other computers to see this computer as the gateway. This works fine.

The only problem is that I'm getting sick of keeping the gateway computer on in order to keep the DSL connection up for the rest of the computers. Then I noticed that the SpeedStream 5660 DSL "modem" that SWBell provided me with is also a router. (Why they gave me a combo router/modem is beyond me, since they gave it to me for free. For trying to discourage DSL sharing, they're doing an awfully bad job of it.) Terrific, except that I don't have an Ethernet network.

Right now, I have the computers hooked up like this: I have the DSL modem hooked up to the RJ11 jack from the DSL splitter. Then I run the RJ45 cable out from the DSL modem to the Ethernet card in my gateway. Using a seperate HPNA network card in the same computer, I hook a phoneline cable from the HPNA network card to a phone jack.

So, this what I'm thinking. I buy an HPNA-to-Ethernet bridge (like the Linksys HPES03). Then, I keep the DSL modem hooked up to the DSL splitter. I run an RJ45 cable from the "modem" (now functioning as a router) to the bridge (instead of the gateway computer's Ethernet card), and then run a phoneline cable from the bridge to the phone jack. If my thinking is right on this (which I doubt it is), then I should just be able to do a little minor twiddling with the software on the computers to point to the router/bridge combo as the new gateway, and I've got my DSL connection shared without the need for a gateway computer.

The problem is that I don't know much about traditional Ethernet networks. I just have this odd feeling that for such a complicated setup just needing to buy a bridge seems far too simple. Would somebody out there with network experience mind telling me if I'm even close on this one? (My current DSL connection is a standard DHCP setup. I was one of the lucky ones who got in before PPPoE.)

[clutch]

Well, it *sounds* like it should work. However, does the modem have a static IP? The reason I ask is that you state DHCP is involved, however you don't state the extent (if the modem gets a new IP, then hands off to the PC or if the modem has a fixed IP and gets new info as necessary). If your modem (proposed gateway) has a variable IP and no way to get that info to your PCs, then you wont be able to connect to it. The gateway will be a constantly moving target, and you will probably have no idea what the next IP will be. Your current setup is *probably* something like this:


Gateway PC-NIC attached to modem is setup for DHCP and gets a seemingly random IP and subnet mask. Second (phone-type) connection has static IP for other machines on network to connect to. Other PCs on network have this IP as their Gateway (and probably DNS) IP and may have a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. If this gizmo has a DHCP-ready port to hook the modem to, and a built-in DHCP server (or at least a static IP on the LAN side) for the other PCs to get info from, it should work. I went here:


http://www.linksys.com/products/product.asp?prid=91&grid=3


and didn't see anything about DHCP listed, so I don't know if it will do what you are looking for. If you have more info, please post it. Hope this helps.

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Regards,

clutch