Our broadband is 20meg, I don't think we will really need much more than that as I am the "heaviest" user (i.e the one who games and usually does the downloads), basically as long as I can play games smoothly while others can browse the web etc. it should be fine. The exception is when having people over for beer/gaming (
), though we've done this at my m8s who also has Virgin 20meg and it's been fine.
I tried plugging the VM's ethernet into one of the switch ports, then the other 2 ports went to the laptops and could only get one on at a time, so it's gonna be the thing where you need a router to issue IP's (we tried setting them up manually, no idea how to get it working lol), so if I plug my switch into the router then it should work "plug & play"?
As for future proofing, it's my opinion that we will be fine with 54mbps as most, if not, all devices will be wired, by the time we will need to upgrade it would probably be better buying a new router anyway, that's just the way I look at it (plus they're too expensive for me right now, really it's not enough of a
need). Also I doubt any wireless connection would need to use that much as any computer/console used for gaming/downloading would be plugged into the network
Actually havn't heard anything about that with Virgin, although I'm not sure if I've actually read their ToS/AUP lol, I think I've read Be's and that's it. Ohwell, there would probably be 3 devices on at any one time or they'd just be idle so hopefully that wouldn't be a problem
Thanks for your input
Although I don't believe we'd need it any time soon, I will look at 50 meg when it's available to weigh out the positives(speed) and negatives(cost)
Thanks,
Scot
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob
Although a router may only have 4 wired ports on it's LAN side it's simple and easy to extend the number of ports available on your local network by adding a switch from one of the router LAN ports. The router will happily serve up the additional IP addresses for your components. On this basis I've set up a network for gamers using a WRT54GS, and more recently a WRT610N, that had 15-20 PCs connected and a couple of wireless lappys too.
The only real issue to be considered here is your broadband speed. Once you are running a few PCs, especially if many could have different users at once, you'll be looking at the top end broadband, i.e. 20meg and perhaps 50meg as it becomes available. The WRT54GL will support the 50 meg stuff over the wired network, but wireless would be very close to the limit. You might want to be looking at a "n" standard router to give you some future proofing.
Oh and I don't know if it's still there, but Virgin Used to suggest in their acceptable use policies that three computers on your home connection was enough.
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