Technical Tips for Small Nonprofits and Social Change Groups:

Sharing a High-Speed Internet Connection in a Small Office

Many non-profit groups with 2-10 staff or interns use plain old modems and phone lines for their Internet connections. These phone lines operate a speed of 56K, which means that if you want to download updates to the virus protection on your computer it can tie up a phone line for 45 minutes or more.

Moreover, if your staff is logging into Hotmail or surfing the web for 15 hours a month, your phone bill is easily incurring $70/month of Internet expense. This money can instead be used to buy you something much better.

As of this writing, phone and cable companies are scrambling to install faster internet service all over the country. Generally, if your town's cable company offers "cable modems" (for both business and residential) or you are in an area that has begun to advertise DSL (a service that operates using your existing telephone wiring), you are in luck. For a small investment in wiring, you can give your entire office a connection to the Internet that is genuinely zippy.

The trick, in some cases, is to make a strategic choice about how you want to connect to the outside world. You have two options:

1) If you have a reliable computer that stays on all the time, and sits idle (a file or print server), you could install two "network adapters" in this computer. One will connect to your internal network, and the other will connect to the equipment provided by the DSL or cable company for connecting to the outside world. (The computer connected to the Internet doesn't have to be the fastest one in the office; a Pentium 133 or a PowerMac 150 will do.)

With this, software will be necessary to route the data back and forth between the external internet and your internal network. Be advised that the process of setting up this software can be technically complex, so if you do not have a savvy computer user or consultant that can help you, you may want to check out option 2 below. The software to use depends on the operating system you have.

For Macintosh OS9 computers, the product Vicom Internet Gateway does the trick.

Use a PC running Windows. Several products, including Wingate, and Nat32, will do what you want. However, we do not recommend the Internet Connection Sharing software that comes with newer versions of Windows, because that software is difficult to set up and not as reliable as third-party products.

Use a PC running Windows NT or 2000. You could use some built-in features of NT, but you might be better off with a third party product like WinProxy.

For computers running Linux or MacOSX, the software you will need is built into the operating system.

2) The second option is to use a "gateway router" -- a device that used to retail for $200 or more but which can now be purchased for around $50. In larger computer stores, these devices are available under the D-Link and Linksys brands.

RESOURCES. Here are three websites providing additional details on Internet Connection Sharing.

Cable-Modems.org Database of Links
Internetsharing.com
The Network Address Translation Help Page

And here is a great resource for those of you considering DSL service: http://dslreports.com

The final issue to consider is security. Hackers have occasionally gained access to "gateway" machines and have used this access to read documents on a local network. Installing a $40 security program called Black Ice Defender on your gateway computer will prevent this. It will turn the gateway machine into what is known as a "firewall" in computer lingo.