As your IT guy suggested, use a router for the fire wall it provides as well at the 4 ports.
It will take a little setup using your web browser to get it working but once setup it's always on and you will never need to run the cable modem program again; the router will take care of it even after a power failure.
Web browsing and Aces High will run in TCP just like Htc's office machines.
The only down side is H2H hosting. You will need to learn how to open the ports to allow connections through the firewall.
Some PCs stumble in Aces High with Win98 behind a router, particularly with two machines playing, so you might need Window XP.
Guess that's all I have to add.
