AOL Broadband on a home network

[amanoffewwords]

Does anyone know if AOL purposely prevents users from sharing a broadband on a home network?

2 WinXP SP1 machines, via a Netgear 10/100 HUB - they can ping each other + transfer data etc. all ok.

However, the windows network wizard does not set up internet sharing.

Strange thing is that AOL 8.0 seems to add a VPN icon in the network panel of the control panel (set to a local address 192.162.0.1 or similar). I wondered if that had something to do with it.

I have done this kind of setup more times than I care to remember but this one is foxing me. I can only come to the conclusion that is working as designed i.e. AOL makes a point of stopping people sharing a single bband connection.

Any clues/ideas/hints/answers would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers
amofw

[Johe02]

It wouldn't surprise me. AOL are full of little tricks like that.

Just get a decent ISP. . .

I use http://www.aaisp.net.uk/ Faultless! :ok:

[fobotcso]

amofw, when you are beaten I hardly think I can help!

But I googled on "internet sharing on aol" and top of the list was this:

PPPshar (http://www.pppindia.com/intl/pppshar/aolsharing.htm)

So there could be an AOL restriction of one on the number of sessions in progress.

Easy way around that would be to replace your Modem and Hub with a Router so all AOL would see would be a single IP address. And there wouldn't have to be a master machine.

[amanoffewwords]

amofw, when you are beaten I hardly think I can help!

http://www.stopstart.freeserve.co.uk/smilie/bandit.gif Thanks, but I don't claim to know everything about computers, yet!

But fortunately this problem is occuring to a customer of mine - I tried to use WCOLLINS's "so what" approach mentioned in a previous post (hope it wasn't copyrighted!): but it didn't wash.

I don't think the router gateway approach would work on AOL as I think the software they give is compulsory and cannot be bypassed but I may be talking b.......s.

I have never seen this VPN icon ever on any XP install so I surmise that it is AOL generated to make life difficult for its customers. Ergo I have more or less advised the customer to switch to another provider.

Otherwise the hub arrangement works a treat.

Johe2 I'm on Blueyonder cable with Belkin wifi equipment - it's been working 100% for over 2 years now (famous last words...
:uhoh: ).

Tks for replies so far.

amowf

[BEagle]

When I was researching the availability of a combined W-LAN/ADSL modem and settled on the BT Voyager 2000, I noted that a reviewer had written: "The router should be configurable to support a service with a block of static IP addresses, but this set-up is not documented at all. It should however be noted that AOL UK users cannot use this as an ADSL router as it is not compatible with their proprietary software."

It works fine with Virgin.net; what the difference is with AOL I don't know. But I guess that changing your ISP would probably sort things for you?