Hi there,

I am having ADSL installed in my house. I have been given a free ADSL modem (specs as yet unknown) and have purchased a Cnet CNSH-800 2nd hand for next to nothing. Although I have used PCs extensivley for some time, I have never set up a network.
Basically all I want to achieve is to enable 4 computers to share the ADSL connection. The machines are as follows:

PC desktop running XP
laptop running XP

MAC laptop running OS X 10.3.7
MAC mini running OS X 10.3.7

Nobody so far has actually been able to tell me if the hardware I have will work with the MAC computers, although I have faith based on previous hardware compatibility tests that it should be pretty seemless...

I haven't used windows since win98 & ME were released so am expecting to have to swim about XP to figure things out.

any comments, suggestions or prods in the right direction would be much appreciated.

regards,

BR, NZ

If the modem is a free USB Modem then the options are limited.
For sharing a network connection, you really need an Ethernet ADSL Router modem, then you can connect all the PCs and Macs together with a hub or switch and connect that to the Router.

If you had to use the USB Modem then you need to use ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) which is fine for PCs but not for Macs though.

You can set up your network using the CNSH-800 alone. However, as peterh indicated, to set up a connection so that your network can share the ADSL connection, you will need a Cable/DSL router. Again, presuming your ADSL modem is to be connected by Ethernet, you have one major hurdle - will your ISP recognize the ADSL modem connected to you?

If you are presently using a 56K modem connection to your ISP, your free ADSL modem is pretty well useless. Normally, a company that offers Cable/DSL will send you their own modem that can be programmed by them to establish the connection. It is possible for you to configure your ADSL modem to work with them if their service recognizes that modem. So, actually, your first step is to speak to your ISP to set up a Cable/DSL connection.