Byron,

The ideal setup in a classroom is to have one connection to the Internet via
a gateway. You only need one outside IP address from an ISP to accomplish
this set up. What you use for the gateway is up to you and your school
administrators. It could be a router or a server. Between the gateway and
the other PC's, you only need one switch that has enough ports to handle the
classroom (usually a 24 port switch). I recommend at least a 100 Mbps
capable switch (again, usually 10/100 but, look toward the future of Giabit
ethernet) either way - the switch and the NIC cards in the PCs will
determine the connection speeds of the PCs.

Switches eliminate collison domains and, therefore, offer better performance
in the classroom environment. The "private" IP's that you are using are
fine - you can use static private IP's for the student computer's and that
will NOT create any additional costs (you can also have a server hand-out
dynamic "private" IP's (using DHCP) it doesn't make a difference). Don't
forget that you can also use a network capable printer plugged into one of
the ports of the switch and all PC's configured to use the printer can print
to it (in this case, you would definitely want the printer to have a static
"private" IP address).

Private IP addresses stay on the inside of the network and are not permitted
to traverse outside of you network. All private IP's will be translated to
the one outside IP address (received from you ISP) using Network Address
Translation (NAT) through the gateway. It will appear as if each student has
their own connection to the Internet.

HTH...John

----- Original Message -----
From: "Byron Wolter" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2004 7:50 PM
Subject: [PCBUILD] DSL and Intranet


> I need help.
>
> Am planning to have DSL Internet access in my classroom (20 networked
> computers) and also share to to other computers in the building (they will
> not be part of the classroom intranet I now have).
>
> The 20 classroom computers all have static IP addresses (192.168.1.xx) on
a
> hub. All use XP Home.  For $59.95 a month the phone company will give us 5
> IPs (dynamic). Two of the IPs would go to the other office, and I would
only
> want to use 3 in the classroom.
>
> Other than the DSL modem, what do I need to allow the 3 classroom
computers
> Internet access (and be able to network with the other classroom
computers)
> and maintain my classroom intranet?
>
> I guess I need to know things like what equipment, how to configure the
> computers like changing my static addresses, using a gateway? I'm not sure
> what I need to even ask.
>
> Byron Wolter
> San Antonio
>
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            Do you want to signoff PCBUILD or just change to
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