Broadband, XBox Live - Routers?

[Sandman]

Kids have just had Broadband connected to their PC at their Mum's (lucky bleeders!).
They now want to connect up to XBox Live, so we now obviously have to buy the Live kit (so far so good), but one of their friends has been saying that they had to get a router as well. Is this the case, or could that have been a one-off. And what is a router, and how much do they usually cost?
Thanks.

[charlesr]

Not too up on Live myself, but if you don't get a reply too quickly, there must be loads of threads in here about it. Try the search facility. There's one at the bottom of each forum page and one of the first forum page.

[Valken]

How are they connected to broadband interweb? via an ethernet card connected to a cable/dsl modem or some USB thingy?

You don't *need* a router... you could use ICS but I guess a router is better overall as you wouldn't need the PC turned on to use Live.

[Sandman]

Hi Valken
They're connected to BTBroadband via a USB modem - well, I presume that it's a modem - it was supplied by BT.

What's an ICS?

[KingMike]

For Xbox Live Issues go here

http://www.xbox.com/uk/support/live/

ICS = Internet Connection Sharing.

I will provide below a few URLs to explain further...

http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/sharing.htm

http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/xp_ics/

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/using/howto/networking/ics.asp

http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/ics

[Valken]

Well, I'd say more only KingMike's got it covered!

[Sandman]

Cheers Mike.

So as well as buying the Live Kit at ?39.99, I now need to stump out ?99 for a Router!?! ft:

And presumably this Router replaces the modem that BT supplied?

Going to have to go on the game for a coupla' years to afford this...

[KingMike]

Cheers Mike.

So as well as buying the Live Kit at ?39.99, I now need to stump out ?99 for a Router!?! ft:

And presumably this Router replaces the modem that BT supplied?

Going to have to go on the game for a coupla' years to afford this...

I paid ?40 for Xbox Live, ?80 for a wireless ethernet router (which i then took back because i just moved the xbox in to the room with the broadband in) and about ?150 for our router.

Thats a lot of dough just for live but im pretty confident it was worth it. We had to have a router for all our computers anyway so that was already installed which means i only really paid ?40 for the setup.

[Vaipon]

I paid ?40 for Xbox Live, ?80 for a wireless ethernet router (which i then took back because i just moved the xbox in to the room with the broadband in) and about ?150 for our router.

Thats a lot of dough just for live but im pretty confident it was worth it. We had to have a router for all our computers anyway so that was already installed which means i only really paid ?40 for the setup.

Just another point... If you already have a network of computers in the house, you can save a load of cash by just configuring one of them to perform software routing for your network. This way, you can share your internet connection amongst your PCs/xbox. As long as the PC doing the routing isn't bogged down by any heavy processing, it is just as fast as a hardware solution on a small LAN, for no extra cost.

[Valken]

I used a linux box for routing for a long time... it worked perfectly but I had to free up space so I got a small, dedicated one instead but Vaipon's right. A PC and a switch can do the job perfectly.

[newmiyamoto]

ebuyer are doing a wireless router (with 4 port switch) for about 50 so there is no need to pay 100. just make sure you buy a adsl router.