How to Share an Internet Connection
Piteşti, Romania

I think it quite odd that out of all the Internet connections that I've used over the years, this bloc apartment in Romania has the fastest transfer speeds I've ever encountered. I've never seen torrent download rates like these before—especially off of an ADSL connection.

How fast are we talking about? Well, how 'bout a 700MB file in less than 10 minutes. Hot.

And after a month without using more than ten minutes of dial-up Internet/week at our previous CouchSurfing host's place, I'm suddenly overwhelmed with the amount of planning, archiving, and downloading that I can do.

Internet Connection Sharing

Vista ICS enabled

Not only is the speed great here, but I've got a trick up my sleeve that lets everyone surf simultaneously (even though the connection out of the wall is wired, and there's no wireless router). I take the wired connection to my laptop, and then use the built-in Wi-Fi to create a hotspot that Tatiana and Coulter can connect to with their laptops. Now our host can surf from the convenience and privacy of his bedroom, and Tatiana chat with her family over Skype without having to juggle laptops or turns at a computer.

The process is quite simple on Vista (once you get the hang of it), but I haven't been successful on XP machines on more than the rare occasion.

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