Wireless Sharing of Dialup Internet Connection?

I'm sort of in the same boat, but during the day I use a regular dialup modem, and after 9 and on weekends I use a cellphone for 1x (about 90-110 connects). In addition I use a PDA (iPAQ w/Built in Wireless), so can't exactly kill the DHCP thing. Sometimes ICS works, and sometimes it won't. While I can force in the DNS/subnet etc and have it work, it ONLY works for one type of connection (not both, IE just dialup modem or sharing of the cell as a modem).. Drives me nuts... And even stranger, I can use the software/free trial of access remote to share the internet connections over a LAN in remote access mode (

) Any answers you find may work for me too, just hoped some extra info (for my case at least) may jog someones memory.

I do dialup sharing with a "lan modem router", usually a 3Com 3c886a:

built in modem connects to the ISP. The built in router does the NAT and DHCP required to connect multiple computahs. Your Belkin, running as an access point, would just plug into one of the 4 LAN ports on the back of the 3C886A. The main advantage is that you don't have to leave a dedicated computer with a modem turned on to share the internet to a 2nd machine. I've also used similar units made by Webramp available: work, but the company has been otto biz for a long time and many of the old bugs are apparently permanent. They are usually really cheap on eBay, but I don't recommend using them.

Disable the dhcp server on the router on the pc connecting to the net set its ip address as 192.168.0.1 (in the tcp/ip) settings and the subnet mask as 255.255.255.0 on the pc's connecting to the net have their ip addresses assigned automatically. now they should get an ip address from the 192.168.0.1 pc when they startup.

for dialing up and disconnecting the modem i use a free program called remote disconnection utility. its brill and has chat capability too.

the router i am using is the netgear wgt634u but those settings would be similar i assume. BTW i got them off netgears tech support so i suppose if u have problems ring belkin and they will tell you exactly what to do.

Regards Damo642

Thanks for the suggestions. Doing this was pretty simple but a bit convoluted. I followed Mark and Si's advice since I needed to buy nothing more (after all, I bought the Belkin for $9.99 (after rebates)). Here is how I shared this, for those who like the simple step by step recipes -

1. Share dial up connection, note the IP address that Windows 2000 would assign (192.168.0.1) and then cancel the ICS wizard.
2. Connect from desktop to Belkin via a LAN port. Login to the belkin on its default (192.168.2.1). This is with the desktop NIC getting its IP from the Belkin. I then reset the Belkin to the same subnet as the ICS desktop LAN card. I used 192.160.0.2 Then you lose connection to the Belkin and cannot reconnect even with the new address (since you are in a different subnet, I guess).

3.) Manually reset the desktop LAN to 192.168.0.1 4.) Connect to the Belkin and set it as only an access point (disabling the router and firewall features.) I set its IP to 192.168.0.254 (since it was defaulted at the top of its original subnet. 5.) Actually share the dial-up connection. 6.) Move the cat5 cable that is connected to the desktop NIC from the LAN (or "computers") port on the Belkin to the WAN (or "Connection to Modem") port.

1. Dial up the internet with the desktop.
2. Fire up the notebook and login to the WLAN. WooHoo.

After typing this up, I realize that I have two or three more steps than probably were necessary. Whatever... Thanks again, Erik

Thanks, Jeff. I used ICS to get the problem solved but I like the idea of the 3Com doing the work and not needing to power up the desktop to connect. There are a few on eBay. How does this modem work, that is, how does a connection to the internet get initiated? Thanks, Erik

You probably would need to run ICS or a simple proxy like Vsocks lite on the desktop, and connect the wireless router's wan jack to the NIC in the desktop. The router then should get an IP address from the desktop ICS/proxy for its wan side, and assign an IP address to the wireless laptop. ICS/proxy should be setup to auto dial the isp when a net connection is attempted.

It's magic. Well, not really.

I assume you mean the 3com unit, not the Webramp. Note that both are discontinued products. |

router looks for any packets with a destination IP address that's on the internet. If it see's one, and it's not list in a filter (such as not dialing the internet to do local Windoze NETBIOS name lookups), then it dials the ISP, logs in, and passes the packet. If there's no furthur traffic, it hangs up after a pre-specified time out. It's fairly easy to setup using a web based form and ISP connection wizard. There are some subtleties (i.e. only a few models work as a dial-in server), but nothing that would cause problems for the average home user. It also keeps a log file of which LAN IP address initiated the dialout, so that if there's a machine that's misbehaving, it can be easily identified.

....

Set up ICS on the computer with the modem, and all will magically work. This is how I used to do it, when I was out in the sticks. If you don't like ICS you can buy proxy software (wingate is one such). Note that you're going to be using the router just as a wireless AP and switch, but thats fine. I did the same with my actiontec unit (and indeed still do, I have 54G router on my cable, and the actiontec is now serving my back garden with 11B).

I'm sure there are many out there but I've used proxy plus [proxyplus.cz] on and off for years with very good results. Web interface for remote modem control, mail and web server etc..... It does require the host PC to be running but has tons of features and is free for up to 3 users.

I've been wanting to try comtun from linkbyte but it's not freeware so I haven't bothered.

The router looks for any packets with a destination IP address that's