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I had my new home wired with 7 ethernet jacks leading back to my smart box in
the master closet in hopes that I could take an internet connection which I
have through comcast, and use that single connection to juice up all the
ethernet jacks so anybody with a laptop can just plug in to the wall for an
instant internet connection. I thought I could get away with plugging the
cable from the smart box into the modem, then running the ethernet cable from
the back of the modem straight into the ethernet jack in the smart box, but
this isn't juicing up the ports. I'm not sure if it was a bad wiring job,
but i think it's more likely I just don't know what I'm doing. Any advice on
how to make this a reality would be greatly appreciated, otherwise I just
wasted money on all that wiring and should have spent the money on a wireless
set up. Thanks
--
John

Hi

I do not know what a Smart Box is?

However to share a single Internet connection with few computers you need a
Router.

The Modem connects to the Router and the Router has ports that can connect
to the Network computer.

I wrote the first two pages ages ago. You might ignore the prices, and the
specific choice of hardware, stick with the principles they are still the
same.

Basic Options for Internet Connection Sharing -
http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=105

Hubs, routers, switches, DSL, LANs, WANs...? -
http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=48

The whole thing should look like this,
http://www.ezlan.net/network/router.jpg

If you Smart box is a Switch then connecting the Router to it would enable
the Internet signal to go to the computers.

Log to this site there is many pages that would explain how to go about the
configuration, http://www.ezlan.net

Jack (MVP-Networking).



"John E" <(donotspamme)> wrote in message
news:7B62ED7D-1045-4EBB-AE02-...
>I had my new home wired with 7 ethernet jacks leading back to my smart box
>in
> the master closet in hopes that I could take an internet connection which
> I
> have through comcast, and use that single connection to juice up all the
> ethernet jacks so anybody with a laptop can just plug in to the wall for
> an
> instant internet connection. I thought I could get away with plugging the
> cable from the smart box into the modem, then running the ethernet cable
> from
> the back of the modem straight into the ethernet jack in the smart box,
> but
> this isn't juicing up the ports. I'm not sure if it was a bad wiring job,
> but i think it's more likely I just don't know what I'm doing. Any advice
> on
> how to make this a reality would be greatly appreciated, otherwise I just
> wasted money on all that wiring and should have spent the money on a
> wireless
> set up. Thanks
> --
> John

My daughter has Comcast and ran into this problem. It seems like Comcast
forces you to use their "install" CD to get a connection.

This install process registers your MAC address with the modem, thus keeping
all other computers on the home network from connecting to the modem.

The solution (and this worked for me) is to use a router connected to the
cable modem and clone the MAC address of the PC that you ran the install CD
on. That way the cable modem thinks that only one PC is connected when in
fact it is a router. Since all network traffic will pass through the router,
all traffic will appear to the modem to have the same MAC address.

I hope this helps.

"John E" <(donotspamme)> wrote in message
news:7B62ED7D-1045-4EBB-AE02-...
>I had my new home wired with 7 ethernet jacks leading back to my smart box
>in
> the master closet in hopes that I could take an internet connection which
> I
> have through comcast, and use that single connection to juice up all the
> ethernet jacks so anybody with a laptop can just plug in to the wall for
> an
> instant internet connection. I thought I could get away with plugging the
> cable from the smart box into the modem, then running the ethernet cable
> from
> the back of the modem straight into the ethernet jack in the smart box,
> but
> this isn't juicing up the ports. I'm not sure if it was a bad wiring job,
> but i think it's more likely I just don't know what I'm doing. Any advice
> on
> how to make this a reality would be greatly appreciated, otherwise I just
> wasted money on all that wiring and should have spent the money on a
> wireless
> set up. Thanks
> --
> John