reusing deb files

[Robert Storey <y2kbug@ms25.hinet.net>]

I'm wondering if there is a way that I can "reuse" deb files on another 
machine. Let me explain more clearly:

If, for example, I do "apt-get install mmv", the package 
mmv_1.01b-12.2_i386.deb will be downloaded into 
directory /var/cache/apt/archives/ and then installed.

That's fine, but I have several computers running Debian. Let's say I copy 
this deb file onto another machine, also to 
directory /var/cache/apt/archives/ and then reissue the command "apt-get 
install mmv". What happens is that the deb file is ignored and the file gets 
downloaded again, and then installed.

Is there a way I can avoid the necessity for downloading the same file again 
for every machine? The only way I can figure to do this is to burn the deb 
files onto a CDROM and issue a "apt-cdrom -d /cdrom add" to add the CDROM 
to /etc/apt/sources.list. This is kind of a kludge. I'm familiar with OpenBSD 
and FreeBSD, and with those OS's, any packages or ports you download can also 
be copied to other machines and installed directly. I'm just wondering if 
there is a way to do this with Debian?

thanks in advance,
Robert