Sharing multiple connections over a home network

[Guest]

I'm a college student living in a house with 7 other people, and our internet
connection is really crappy. We have wireless broadcast from out back, which
is the school network and tends to get really slow in the afternoons; also
our neighbors are broacasting a broadband signal that is either really fast
or non-functioning at any given moment. Both are pretty unreliable, and so we
have to switch back and forth between the two, and other occasional signals
from down the street, constantly. But so I'm trying to figure out if by
networking my computer with some of my housemates' we can get a little more
reliable internet. We have four computers wired together with ethernet cables
and between the four there are three wireless cards. Is there a way to
combine the signals recieved by the three different cards and make that
signal available to all of us? And still have it automatically adjust as the
different connections randomly come and go? We've spent a semester trying to
get through our connection individually and we're about ready to figure out
something better. Of course there are plenty of complications to deal with as
well- two of the computers are running XP and two are running OS X, 10.4. I'm
not too worried about that, I think if we set up the network with the PCs the
Macs will just have to go along, which Tiger is pretty good at. Also, it'd be
really nice if we could somehow see the college network instead of just our
private network at all the computers, so that iTunes can share and such. But
I'd definitely settle for just being able to get online without it being
painfully slow, and without the constant shifting interrupting any downloads
going and making me mad. Any advice you can give would be greatly
appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

In

I'm a college student living in a house with 7 other people, and our
internet connection is really crappy. We have wireless broadcast from
out back, which is the school network and tends to get really slow in
the afternoons; also our neighbors are broacasting a broadband signal
that is either really fast or non-functioning at any given moment.
Both are pretty unreliable, and so we have to switch back and forth
between the two, and other occasional signals from down the street,
constantly. But so I'm trying to figure out if by networking my
computer with some of my housemates' we can get a little more
reliable internet. We have four computers wired together with
ethernet cables and between the four there are three wireless cards.
Is there a way to combine the signals recieved by the three different
cards and make that signal available to all of us? And still have it
automatically adjust as the different connections randomly come and
go? We've spent a semester trying to get through our connection
individually and we're about ready to figure out something better. Of
course there are plenty of complications to deal with as well- two of
the computers are running XP and two are running OS X, 10.4. I'm not
too worried about that, I think if we set up the network with the PCs
the Macs will just have to go along, which Tiger is pretty good at.
Also, it'd be really nice if we could somehow see the college network
instead of just our private network at all the computers, so that
iTunes can share and such. But I'd definitely settle for just being
able to get online without it being painfully slow, and without the
constant shifting interrupting any downloads going and making me mad.
Any advice you can give would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

You can't really expect to "combine" your network cards that way...no. With
seven people, I'd think you could afford to split the cost of a wireless
router & monthly cable modem service - have you discussed that amongst
yourselves?