SoftRouter Plus allows for multiple users to share a single Internet Account and connection, reducing costs and increasing flexibility. This major feature of SoftRouter Plus allows for client machines to access the Internet by sharing a single IP address.

SoftRouter Plus uses Network Address Translation (NAT) to perform all necessary address translations transparently. Therefore, clients need not even know they are accessing the Internet through SoftRouter Plus. As a result, network administrators are able to give users any IP address for internal use and only use an "Internet assigned" address for external communications. This is particularly valuable given the shortage of Internet addresses, as well as the time and cost of obtaining multiple addresses.

A good way to explain how this works is to give a simple example:

A user on the local network wants to view a web page available at Microsoft's web site, www.microsoft.com: the user enters the web address into their browser, which requests the page from the Microsoft web server.

This request is passed to SoftRouter Plus, as this is designated as your connection to the Internet. SoftRouter Plus does it's bit of magic and modifies the request from the browser of your internal machine to look like it comes from SoftRouter Plus itself, then sends it to the Microsoft web server.

This request is fulfilled, and the requested page comes back to SoftRouter Plus. SoftRouter Plus receives this returned piece of information, processes it, remembers who requested it on the local network, then sends it to that machine. The browser doesn't know any different, and neither does the web server. SoftRouter Plus does this for all requests out onto the Internet from machines on the local network.

NAT has considerable advantages over traditional proxy based systems, such as:

	Speed Of Access - Because SoftRouter Plus processes Internet requests in real time, there is no performance difference from the client machine being directly connected, obviously within the limitations of the type of Internet connection.
	Current Pages - As some proxy servers cache pages locally, which, on initial examination, should accelerate access times, actually can slow Internet access in some circumstances due to the repeated checking required to ensure that cached information is right up to date. SoftRouter Plus passes requests immediately, ensuring that the information supplied is the latest.
	Client software support - Being true TCP/IP Router based, SoftRouter Plus has no compatibility problems with any software running on the client machines, and requires no proprietary client configuration or software.

There is a table available providing a comprehensive comparison of Vicomsoft NAT solutions against traditional proxy servers.

Shared Internet Access also acts as a Firewall, preventing unauthorized access back into the local network from the Internet.

If Shared Internet Access is not required--in the case of a purchased range of IP numbers for example--then the SoftRouter can be used as a true TCP/IP router for connecting to the Internet.

For further specific information on any of the features of SoftRouter Plus, choose a section below or return to the SoftRouter Plus main information page, and choose a subject there.