Quote Originally Posted by b0
Yes that really sounds reasonable, and I even checked up some router prices recently but I'm not sure what exactly I need.
You say you already have a LAN, so again I'll ask, what hardware are you using now? Is the LAN not attached to the modem? What type of connection is on the modem?

I don't know what the prices are like there, but they have become dirt cheap here. When my first 4 port wired router first came out it was selling for around $150 US. I paid a bit over $100 US about 5 1/2 years ago. Since then I've bought a few wired/wireless routers dirt cheap, usually $10 US or less after rebate. In the past few weeks I even saw an 802.11g router at $2.99 US after rebate, and this week I'm pretty sure I saw one on sale again at the $5 after rebate price. Of course, you can still pay $50 US for an 802.11g one if you don't shop around and maybe as much as $90 US if you want one of the ones with unstandardized new high speed features, but the days of the over $100 4 port wired router are long gone. It's a great investment, even at the $100 price I paid for my first one I figured I got a lot for the money, in terms of the added safety a hardwall firewall brings to the network, a DHCP server, and the ease of setup as I add new systems to the network or boot a new Live CD and don't have to deal with PPPoE software. And it's extremely handy to have every system on your LAN on the Internet. When working on one system, for example, if you need information that can be found on-line, you just use another computer. And you can share that connection quite well. A second computer by my side has been seeding the newest Knoppix on BitTorrent since about an hour after it was first released, I only pause it when I want the full upstream bandwidth for on-line gamming, otherwise I see no impact on my Internet access and can use the bandwidth that I'm paying for anyway to help distribute Knoppix.