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Dear All,
Please help! I access t'internet on a desktop pc via Virgin (nee NTL) cable modem. This has one ethernet port on it; everything runs well!
However, in an attempt to reduce the painful amounts of money I pay to Virgin each month by way of phone calls (in-laws in Canadia @ 30p/min, sister in Switzerland @ 40p/min!) I bought an RTX Dual Phone. This has a base station that connects to your landline as normal, and also via ethernet cable to t'internet and talks direct to Skype. I can plug that into the modem, and again, all is well.
In an attempt to have both available at the same time, I purchased from Maplins a 5 port ethernet switch/hub (not a router). This, I was assured, should auto config to make everything work. It doesn't - I can either run the PC or the VOIP phone, not both.
I'm happy to take it back to Maplins, but before I inflict a trip into town on myself, is there anything I can try locally?
Thanks for any help.
Chris
I don't know how virgin work but it's a modem, it would normally only provide a single IP address. You need a router/switch to provide multiple IP addresses.
Samuri is right. A router uses NAT (network address translation) and DHCP which allocates a unique internal (private) IP address for internal traffic then allows it to use the "real" "public" address when it makes a request onto the internet.
If you buy a cable router such as this [url= http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalog?q=cable+router&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=1365042163019562644&ei=T1b-StP_FMK24QaG9JT_Cw&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CCoQ8wIwBQ#ps-sellers ]Linksys router[/url] It should provide what you need and will also provide several rj45 network ports so you will be able to add more Ethernet devices and wont need a seperate switch which means you should be able to take the Maplins one back.
I dont have one of the cable routers above it was just an example, there are loads around.
Good luck
Thanks guys, will give that a try.
[i]Chris[/i]
