Still not sure where the 590 baht a month for a 256Kb/s connection comes from - TOT charge me 500 Baht a month.

Agree that a Router is better but the protection provided is not a firewall, it is a by product of NAT. A NAT helps prevent an outsider from attacking your machine easily. However if they can plant a program inside your machine (not that difficult) then you do need a firewall. A firewall also stops your machine contacting the internet unless you have specifically authorised the program to do so. A firewall like ZoneAlarm is free download. You also need an anti-virsu program. Again one like AVG is free to download. (or you can go to pantip plaza ........... but that's 100 baht!)

Sorry Chanchao but in my calculations I was assuming a connection to the net each day of a month, hence 30 times at 3 baht 90 baht plus the tax of 7% is as near as 100 baht as my little brain can work it out! Also some months have 31 days, sometimes you need an extra connection, sometimes the conenction fails etc etc :-)

On contention - for the average user 20:1 is fine, it will rarely cause you any problem. UK tends to use 50:1 for domestic use. For a firm that moves lots of data then 20:1 or 10:1 is required - or for those running a P2P server! AS I said before the biggest problem is the server sending you the data, not the server in Chiang Mai. Other bottlenecks can be Thailands links to the big world outside being overloaded. Asia as a whole is not working very well at the moment - try looking at http://www.internettrafficreport.com/asia.htm - even Singapore, a main link into and out of Thailand is under 75% at present

> Sorry Chanchao but in my calculations I was assuming a connection to the

> net each day of a month, hence 30 times at 3 baht 90 baht plus the tax of

> 7% is as near as 100 baht as my little brain can work it out!

Oh, right, per month. Indeed yes.

Cheers,

Chanchao

> OK I will have to go for a router because I want to connect two 'puters

> The network cable will be about 25 meters long, would I be better off going

> for wireless ?

Well... up to you.. Cable is slightly less hassle to set up. If you just have desktop computers in a fixed place not too far from where the ADSL connection would be then I'd just use a cable. If on the other hand you have a laptop computer and you like to move around, read ThaiVisa in bed or in the bathtub and everything then go for wireless..

Cheers,

Chanchao