You need to tell us a lot about both your network, and his, before anyone can answer the question(s). What conenciton, what router or modem, what platform, what security... etc etc

Okay, I have a WGT624 v3 netgear router. My isp is comcast. I have several computers in my network, including an xbox. I just have the windows firewall security and my router's firewall. My friend has a belkin router, don't know the model, and his isp is comcast too. So could he just connect to my network using VPN? We're both using xp home.

no, he can't just connect. Several things are in the way.

1) Comcast. Do they allow clients to route to one another? Quite a few ISPs don't, because this is how viruses spread.

2) ideally the two of you need two different IP ranges - if you are 192.168.1.x internally, then he needs to be 192.168.2.x

3) your routers need to pass packets to and fro, either because they have open and forwarded ports, or because they make a VPN tunnel with one another. Can you see indications in the docs for either bit of kit that they support this?

i'm not sure comcast allows this. His ip range is 192.168.2.x and mine is 192.168.1.x, now how do you do the rest?

you do the rest by:

- getting an ISP that allows you to do it. Their help-desk should tell you if this is the case, or not.


- having routers which include VPN capability and come with the relevant instructions

- having ISP accounts which provide reasonably well-fixed addresses. Real, eternally fixed static IP costs extra, but most ISPs don't change the address of a subscriber all that often, and you can use services like DynDNS (www.dyndns.net, from memory) to keep your address known by your counterparty. Some routers (I use Drayteks for this) support DynDNS update automatically.