[lug] More cable modem product Q's

[D. Stimits]

So far it looks like several of the network cards people have mentioned 
are available for a good price (3com is the exception, and that only 
based on price, otherwise they sound like the choice product). I already 
have a Linksys switch that I am happy with, and the Linksys NICs are 
available everywhere, many of them below $20, so likely this will be the 
choice for NICs.

Now for the cable modem gurus (or those with mild experience that do not 
consider themselves gurus), I curious about another option. There are 
dedicated cable modem router/firewall boxes for roughly $90 (one would 
still need a cable modem) with 4 ports available, and capable of up to 
253 machines if you use switches. I will have to drop by a store and 
read the box, but does anyone know if these are typically limited by 
working as a proxy, or if they work fine with every box involved having 
its own DHCP address (I want real addresses to come in from outside with 
on occasion)?

Probably that path will not be taken, due to lack of ability to play 
with QoS and traffic shaping, but maybe I could live without that. The 
really unfortunate thing is that I have not had a cable modem to play 
around with, I have no idea what it's latency problems would be for 
things like real time gaming while someone else is downloading web pages 
at the same time. I have a fear of getting stuck with a dedicated cable 
router, when I already have a cheap linux box sitting there with 
bridging and ipchains and iptables ready. Plus, I have no idea how 
flexible the firewalling really is in the dedicated router/firewall 
boxes (the fact that one has a rebate that cuts the price down to about 
2/3 is driving my desire to find out and consider it). Does anyone here 
have cable modem access, and use it with any real time software, 
including games, and if so, how does it work out if someone were to 
download web pages at the same time?

D. Stimits, stimits AT idcomm.com

PS: My phone service only gets worse. Since the problems started, I have 
never had over 37.3 kbps, before about a month ago, I never got below 48 
kbps. Currently, all online games are useless (not that I should worry 
about games, but heck, it keeps me out of trouble).