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Verifying the Readiness of Your Internet Account

For broadband access to the Internet, you need to contract with an Internet service provider (ISP) for a single-user Internet access account using a cable modem or DSL modem. This modem must be a separate physical box (not a card) and must provide an Ethernet port intended for connection to a Network Interface Card (NIC) in a computer. Your router does not support a USB-connected broadband modem.

For a single-user Internet account, your ISP supplies TCP/IP configuration information for one computer. With a typical account, much of the configuration information is dynamically assigned when your PC is first booted up while connected to the ISP, and you will not need to know that dynamic information.

In order to share the Internet connection among several computers, your router takes the place of the single PC, and you need to configure it with the TCP/IP information that the single PC would normally use. When the router's Internet port is connected to the broadband modem, the router appears to be a single PC to the ISP. The router then allows the PCs on the local network to masquerade as the single PC to access the Internet through the broadband modem. The method used by the router to accomplish this is called Network Address Translation (NAT) or IP masquerading.

202-10099-01, April 2005