How to connect both?

Question

I have two computers one is a desktop the other a laptop and both have Win XP, i dont have a LAN cable or router all i have is phone lines and one dial up connection...both computers have built in modems....is it possible to connect both computers to the internet at the same time w/ one connection and one phone line....if so how?

*Edit* i dont have phone lines...i have phone line cables

Answer 1

No, you would need to network the two together via either a serial, infrared, or ethernet connection and then share the internet connection from one computer to the other.

Answer 2

In theory, with XP if you HAVE LAN (network) cards installed on both computers you COULD share your dial up connection....

Connect the 2 puters w/ the network cable (and DO NOT use a crossover network cable), on the computer that is hooked up to the dial up modem. Click the MY NETWORK PLACES icon, network setup wizard and walk thru that...Make sure you check the option that says OTHER COMPUTERS USE THIS COMPUTER TO CONNECT TO THE INTERNET....This more or less sets the dialup computer as a server....On the other computer run the wizard, check the CONNECT THRU ANOTHER COMPUTER option, and you should be good to go...

Now for the bad news....by attempting to use BOTH computers on a dialup at the same time, you cut your available "bandwidth" in half...Meaning, if you try to download a 1meg file that takes 1 minute on just your regular dialup, it will take 2 minutes to DL the same file to both individual computers......

The same theory applies to just regular (one puter) DL'ing...If you try DL'ing the same file twice at the same time (or even multiple files) of 1meg, your DL time (1min per meg) turns into 2 minutes.
3 files turns into 5 minutes....This time becomes EVEN longer if you're doing something else like chatting or even simple browsing.....

So keep this theory in mind when you're trying this technique....

Answer 3

You can, but only one will be able to access the internet at a time! I.E. if one is on the net, the other cant be. If you want both to connect you must have a crossover networking cable! The setup is complicated.

Answer 4

A router of some sort is required to share a single internet address among multiple computers. It's fairly easy, and they're not terribly expensive.