Increase max database connections

[Caribouhill]

I've been working on a website for 2.5 years in my free time, starting from zero programming experience & now I'm somewhat satisfied enough to start up the website.

But I have encountered an issue I cannot seem to find an easy solution for.
The max TCP port range is screwing me over when I want to have a bunch of connections to both local & LAN mysql databases - since each connection uses 1 port. I don't want to be limited to 65535 connections.

I've read that mysql got a shared memory protocol.
Which I think would be the solution for the local database but I cannot seem to find a way to use that in php.

If I could get that to work, I can move on to setting up the LAN mysql databases being each connected to from 5 different internet cables.
Which will stack up the max amount of connections since each of those IP addresses have about 65535 free ports.

My questions are -
1. How can I make a shared memory connection between php & mysql?
2. Is there any better ways I could connect to either of the local & LAN mysql databases?

[Benjamin]

I don't understand why you would ever need that many simultaneous connections. Even 1000 would be a lot for a high traffic site.