I notice that Comcast assigns IPs based on the NIC card. As I was preparing to switch to DSL, I hooked one computer to the cable modem and the other to the DSL, to make sure I have everything connected right, by accessing the DSL from my cable modem, and I see that Comcast gave me a different IP number on a different computer with a different NIC card. How does Comcast know that I am logging on with a different NIC card and a different computer?
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The real queestion is - why don't you have an inexpensive router parked between your modem and PC ?
The WAN IP is issued not really to the NIC card but to the first network device it sees. It is based on the MAC address of the device. Every(or most anyway) network accessing device used a MAC address for identification. If you hook up a SOHO router it will issue the WAN IP to that device. If you hooked up a console game it would get a different IP.
I use Microsoft Internet Connection sharing as my router, and Tiny Peronal Firewall as my firewall program. It is better than any hardware firewall appliance. I have three PCs behind the ICS box.
I'll take a NAT router over that setup any day of the week. To each his own, I guess.
No, you're mistaken. Comcast generally hands out dynamic IP addresses, which are "leased" for a period of time. The particular addresses are handed out randomly from a pool. When the lease expires, or you shut off your cable modem, the address is returned to the pool and issued to someone else. If you never turn off the cable modem, the lease can be "renewed" when it expires, so it is possible to maintain the same address for weeks or months.
--Gene
You'd have to prove that to me - nothing built by M$ could beat a standalone router from Linksys/Netgear. Software just won't do what a hardware router can do.
Comcast procedures are not uniform across the country. In my area, if I attach a device with a different MAC address to the cable modem, I will be assigned a different IP address. If I reattach the original device I will be assigned the IP address that was last assigned to that device.
Seems there is some confusion here anout how DHCP works. The NIC MAC address is assigned an ip address from a pool. Depending on how the ISP is set up for their lease time on the address, it is possible to get the same address after a shutdown. Again this is dependent on the configuration of the ISP and how many users are contending for the IP addresses. So above where you say you received the same address that was assigned to that device, is very possible with dhcp. The above is not saying you are being assigned a static IP from your ISP.
I never said that I was assigned a static IP address. What I said was that I got a different IP address for each different MAC address I connected to the cable modem, but that the IP/MAC address pairings were retained no matter how many times I switched devices or re-synched the modem.
And that's perfectly normal.
However there are certain things that software and ICS can do that hardware routers cannot. With ICS, you can have file and printer sharing accross the network, something you cannot do with a hardware router.
You can't? Why not? Or maybe the better question is, what do you mean by "across the network"?
Huh ?
That's what routers are for - most new printers with any capacity these days have wireless networking builtin, they should connect up fine to your wireless router and be shareable on your network. If not wireless, it's probably still got ethernet, plug it into the switch on the back of the router and voila! - it's shareable. If not, you can always hook it up serial/USB/parallel on a computer and share it to the network.
Accross my LAN. if you want to run your own LAN, you need an ICS box to handle it.
Oh, well in that case, you're 100% mistaken. All you need is a switch (or hub) to be able to share files and printers across a LAN. Hell, a crossover cable would work just as well if there are only two PC's involved, or an ad hoc wireless connection, as another example. If you want to also share an Internet connection, it makes perfect sense to use any of the popular Linksys/Netgear/DLink/etc NAT routers since they bundle the switch with the router and offer far more flexibility and security than ICS will ever be able to offer.
I'm not sure how you came to the conclusion that ICS is superior. :) It's cheaper than a router, (as in free), but that's its only advantage, and it's a very small one when you consider the low cost (and other advantages) of a router.
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