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May 5th, 2008 at 11:10am
There are three solutions to this I know:
1. Passive hub. This device effectively parallels all the ethernet cables together. All PCs see everything. No management. To work, your LinkStar service provider must have given you enough IP addresses for the PCs to be connected. Hubs are sometimes unsatisfactory due to PC interfaces having different speeds (10 v 100) with auto-negotiations occurring.
2. Switch. Similar to hub above but traffic on each cable is particular to the PC connected. Possibility of management, e.g. Cisco switch. To work, your LinkStar service provider must have given you enough IP addresses for PCs to be connected.
3. Router. You only need one IP address from the LinkStar and you may invent as many private IP addresses as you want for your LAN. Many varieties of router are available, often with a mixture of etherent sockets and wireless access for multiple PCs on your LAN. A router is probably the least cost solution as so many millions of them are sold for domestic and small office solutions.
If you know the subnet mask of your LinkStar Ethernet gateway port, the number of PCs you can connect (without a router) are: 255.255.255.252 PCs connected = 1 255.255.255.248 PCs connected = 5 255.255.255.240 PCs connected = 13 255.255.255.224 PCs connected = 29
If you wonder about these strange numbers, note that in each case 3 extra IPs are not available for PC use, as they are used for the subnet name, the subnet gateway (LinkStar modem socket) and the subnet multicast IP address.
Read about routers before you buy one as traffic management will soon become your big problem. You need to be able to monitor and manage your users to avoid abuse and congestion.
I hope others will make their suggestions here also.
Best regards, Eric.
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