[fps]

in the very early 2000s, home routers weren't a thing. Cable modems hooked up to a single computer. If you were a business, you got a PIX, but home setups were frequently done with a computer that had 2 ethernet ports and either used Windows's "home internet sharing" or Linux's ipchains and NAT. This was typically fine, because very few houses had multiple computers. I knew many people who would get a separate cable modem for each computer in their house.

By the mid 2000s, Linksys started coming out with their little WRT routers, which were affordable by home users and mostly just plug and play.

[icedchai]

What you describe is late 90's, not early 2000's. Broadband was rolling out across many areas of the US in the late 90's (@Home cable modems, DSL, etc.)