Sharing an internet connection through an ethernet hub??

StevieP · 10 Sep 2010 at 11:26

I am getting my dad a set of homeplugs as his wireless upstairs is just this side of useless but he has 2 or 3 PC's up there (in the same room!) that could do with being connected to the net.

Now he has a 4 port ethernet hub (powered) that I'm imagining I can use to network the homeplug to the 3 PC's - is it as easy as connecting the upstairs homeplug to the hub and then a cable from the hub to the ethernet ports on the PC's or will I have to faff around setting up a new network???

Sorry for the noob question but I'm a bit pants at networking!!!

StevieP

tolien · 10 Sep 2010 at 12:01

What's going to be on the other end of the homeplugs?
There's nothing stopping you connecting the machines to a switch (if it really is a hub, bin it and buy a cheap switch while you're at it) which is then connected to a homeplug but if the other homeplug were connected, say, directly to a cable modem it wouldn't work.

StevieP · 10 Sep 2010 at 12:24

Sorry, I've probably not explained myself very well.....

The modem is in the hall downstairs with one of the homeplugs in the wall socket near it connected by the ethernet cable.

Upstairs the plan is to have the other homeplug in the wall with an ethernet cable to the hub/switch (I dont know what the difference is - its just a little square box with 4 ethernet ports on it!) and then 3 more ethernet cables feeding the various PC's - does this sound like it will "share" the connection to all the PC's?

StevieP

tolien · 10 Sep 2010 at 16:55

It won't without putting a router somewhere in there.

The difference between a hub and a switch is mostly speed. Hubs broadcast any traffic they receive on all of the ports that have anything connected to them; switches are more intelligent and will send the traffic using only the appropriate port. 100Mbps hubs are fairly rare, gigabit ones don't exist (and nobody's sold hubs new for a while now).

StevieP · 12 Sep 2010 at 18:03

Sorry, router/modem is what I meant!

linktoinsanity · 12 Sep 2010 at 18:26

tolien said:
It won't without putting a router somewhere in there.

The difference between a hub and a switch is mostly speed. Hubs broadcast any traffic they receive on all of the ports that have anything connected to them; switches are more intelligent and will send the traffic using only the appropriate port. 100Mbps hubs are fairly rare, gigabit ones don't exist (and nobody's sold hubs new for a while now).

I have an old 100Mbps Hub lying around somewhere...

You don't HAVE to bin the Hub and buy a switch, but you need a router to sort out the net traffic. Either buy a modem router and replace your modem alltogether (recommended), or buy a cable router and plug the modem directly into that (more difficult to find ones that will definately work together). Then plug your router into the homeplug adapter and your hub/switch into the one at the other end and you'll have internet sharing...

An example of a modem router would be: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-176-NG&groupid=46&catid=1595&subcat=