The crew installed a network interface card (NIC) which connects with the "COM21" DOXport 1010 Cable modem. After they left, I installed a second network card and ran an ethernet cable from each of my three PCs to a hub. The family and I configured each of our respective computers for Windows Internet Connection Sharing. The network is up and running! All three PCs surf the web and checks e-mail at the same time. No more conflicts, no more "are you logged on?" Everybody is on all of the time!

How's the speed? Using www.2wire.com's Bandwidth Meter, I get results that are hard to believe. I ran the test five times, each hour on the hour, and then averaged the results: 958. The same test on my modem: 14. So cable is an average of 58 times faster than my 56K dial-up connection. It's fastest during the morning and early afternoon: a top speed of 3,027 clocked at 1pm.

At first I tried a firewall but found it was always blocking something - a real bother. It gave informative messages, but I had heard that ICS to a private network was pretty secure. Without the firewall running, I ran the "Shields Up" test and it reports that all is well. The following are messages from that test.
"Your internet port 139 does not appear to exist."
"Unable to connect with NetBIOS, This computer appears to be very SECURE since it is not exposing ANY of its internal NetBIOS networking protocol over the internet."
"All ports are closed to access and NetBios is in Stealth mode."
"For all intents and purposes your computer doesn't exist to scanners on the Internet!"

The downside is Comcast's phone support. They are like calling AOL or JPS. Get your cordless phone and a good book, you will be there for a while.

My cost is less than I was paying for an ISP and an extra phone line. Installation is $149 unless you refer to code FGF100. They will give you $100 off the installation and give an existing customer one month free for the referral. (You can use me for a referral: jim-rader@home.com)