Hi, as a novice to networking you will need to bear with me regarding my difficulty.

I live in a shared house and want to use the (Virgin) cable TV / phone line, of my house mate, to connect to the internet (I am on AOL; they are on Virgin). However, the router we have is a ADSL modem router (LInksys) which is not suitable for cable (or so I have been informed).

I have an internal modem and a wireless card in my computer, but need to know if I purchase a Cable router whether it would be suitable for my computer and could I connect to the internet?

More than one question here I appreciate, but any assistance and advice would be gratfully accepted.

You indicated cable tv and phone line - how does your housemate connect to the internet, through the cable connection or the phone line?

I believe that routers don't care if its cable or dsl. They work just the same, IMO. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Fawoodward: It is a joint phone / cable package. I presume there is a difference if the internet is connected through the phone line or cable, namely the choice of router? The internet is connected by cable

Typically the router does not care if it's DSL or Cable because there should be a modem sitting between the cable/phone line and your router. If your roommates are connecting straight to the modem, just buy a wireless modem and place it in between their computer and the modem and you all should have wireless access.

Hi Gravity: I do not quite understand why I will need a wireless modem when I have an internal modem? In my previous accomodation I shared just a wireless router through a DSL phone line without a wireless modem (used just my internal modem).

I suppose I will just need a wireless cable router and connect to the internet through that router and my mate's Virgin cable line? Or is that just to simplistic?

Typically, the internal modem (wireless adapter) is just a receiver. The wireless router is the broadcaster. Obviously you can't receive anything without it being broadcast. Now, I'm still not entirely clear on how your room mates have their network setup. You say that they have DSL modem running into a Linksys router. Is that router a wireless router? If so, all you will need to do is connect to their wireless network.

This post has been edited by Gravity Gripp: May 23 2008, 10:21 AM

Problem partial solved - thanks

Good to hear dan.

Can you tell us what you did and what problems remain?

Hi, simple: I just changed the ADSL modem router (LInksys) for a cable wireless router (ZyXEL) and configured the setting through the router wizard disc. The problem I have now is a configuration one (see new post)