Adsl network setup

[SlowInternet]

Need some advise. My son and 3 of his student friends want to setup a adsl network in their commune. They want to get an adsl line and some uncapped internet for the 4 of them to share.

What will be the best setup to use ?

1) What adsl line will be the best ?
2) Router ?
3) ISP ?

They also want to share series / movies via their network via a portable hard drive. Can the hard drive be connected to a router and be shared like that or not ?

What is the best setup to use ?

I'm not clued up with this stuff so I will appreciate help from the experts.

 

[10i]

Hi there, you asked a lot of questions. I will try to answer them one at a time.

1. ADSL line
If they are not going to be downloading during the day and they don't need to stream video like YouTube, then a 1 mb line is fine (you can always upgrade the line speed later). If they go with a 1 mb line the uncapped will be much cheaper.

2. Router
A netgear or billion router would be good. Netgear have routers with 2 antenna's which should provide good WIFI converage for all. Make sure they get a router that includes a surge protector, routers are very sensitive to power spikes. Don't buy a cheap R400 router, rather spend a bit more and get a better one.

3. ISP
I can only talk from my own experience on this. I have used Telkom and Mweb, and Mweb has always given me a more reliable connection.

4. Cost
A 1 mb line rental is + - R160 per month, add the ISP fee of + - R199 for uncapped internet, plus the normal telkom line rental of + - R140 and you have approximately R499 per month (you have to have a normal land line to get an ADSL line).

5. Sharing
A portable hard drive cannot be connected directly to a router, if they have an old PC between them, they can load Linux onto it and connect the portable HDD to that PC. It doesn't need to be a new or fancy PC. There are guides to doing that if they Google it. They could look at using something like FreeNAS as well (which was designed to share files over networks).

Good luck with everything

 

[Segg]

To be honest if there are 4 students using a 1meg line there is gonna be kuk, downloading movies/music, checking Facebook e.t.c

I would suggest that you get a minimum of 2megs, mainly because come assignment time or chill time they are all going to be needing the internet, as 10i said don't cheap out on the router and make sure its surge protected, I even have an Ethernet surge protector on mine (an old Billion 7300RA) I would recommend Billion simply because I find they are rock solid devices, a bit hard to get the advanced stuff going at first, but once its set up it works like a dream

ISP = Mweb, no arguments there, in fact my mweb account runs on average 60% faster than quoted (my line and account are different speeds)

Sharing: I had an old Netgear Router from Telkom which had a USB port for sharing USB devices, but I never used it, again best solution is to teach them how to use network sharing among themselves, else create a NAS server from an old computer or buy a cheap HP micro server (think it goes for +- R1500, Esquire was advertising it a while back)

As far as monthly cost is concerned ask them how much they are individually willing to pay and add it up to get to the closest uncapped account including all fee's (That way they cant moan the internet is too slow, if they want it faster then they must contribute more)

 

[SlowInternet]

i10 and Segg thank you for the help