Network connection sharing, remote control of connections?

[bassman000]

firstly, yopu may remember me from a now banned post, (general fedora reveiw(aka my thoughts on FC6))or some sort post.
the problems with FC6 have now been resolved, and i am loading utilities on the machine (it was a bunch of bugs, and a few files that were incompatible with my hardware) i tried mandriva, and was dissapointed, and also tried suse, and was not a big fan. FC6 has what i want. but i do not want to turn this post into a flame as my last one ended.... so just agree to disagree on this one

the new problem NETWORKING

i have an interesting network setup, mainly it's a simple LAN, with 8 computers and 3 printers, all connected with CAT5 with static IP addresses.
it also has wireless, but that is not the current problem.

one computer, has a modem. this computer is XP Pro SP2, and unfortunately i cannot change that. (i do not own this computer, so i am not allowed to remove the modem, or load another operating system)

i am connecting through that with all sorts of operating systems, from 2000, to Vista, to MAC OS8.6, to MAC OS X, to FC1, to FC 6. the shared dial-up connection is slow, but works flawlessly for sharing connectivity across this network.

unfortunately that computer is in the basement, and most of the rest are 3 floors up. so unless i am using a windows XP, or Vista machine, i must go all the way downstairs and connect/disconnect it. in XP you can go into network connections and disconnect/connect it remotely.

can i use Linux, FC 6 to control that connection? are there terminal commands, or a utility that would do it?
any ideas?

thanks in advance!! any ideas would be helpful, unless you reccomend to go back to XP, because that's not happening.