Intro to Computer Networks Upon researching internet service providers for our Fayetteville NC, I have narrowed it down to two companies: Spectrum and CenturyLink. Both have some pros and cons to them, I will summarize my findings. CenturyLink’s has a DSL connection for most of their packages, which I don’t think will be sufficient to support the day-to-day operations. But they do offer business plan package which uses fiber optic cabling. This form of cabling offers up to 940 Mbps (in theory) download/upload speed. They offer unlimited data usage, no annual contracts and activation/cancellation has the fees. Which is great since this ensures our network proper bandwidth to support multiple connected nodes, if paired with the proper cabling and layer three hardware. Fiber optic is indeed expensive to implement and maintain, but this route will reduce network congestion and has a 99.9% up-time reliability. At the time of typing this, the monthly fee for this service is $65 with a one-time service installation fee for their modem (if needed). Spectrum download offers speed employees, with a business and 35Mbps the capability upload for plan that speed. has This web hosting, a can 1Gbps easily large data (1000Mbps) support 20+ transfers and file transfers. The upload speed is slightly lower than what CenturyLink offers. There are with no contract is no data limits Spectrum, zero cancellation fees and needed upon signing up. At the time of typing this report, the cost of this business package is at $149.99. My recommendation would be to sign up with Spectrum since it has a download speed. If higher bandwidth is needed, we can upgrade to fiber optic and immensely increase it. This portion of the report will be the hardware and software recommendations. The Desktop machines and monitors should be purchased from HP. HP is widely used throughout various companies in the U.S. and I personally use these products at home and at work. The lifespan of these products can easily overcome 10+ years of daily use and their customer support department has very good reviews. A great HP desktop would be the HP Pavilion – TP01-1105t, it has an intel core i3 10100 (3.6 GHz base frequency, up to 4.3GHz with intel turbo boost, 6MB L3 cache). The GPU is decent for marketing department, all these machines come with an integrated UHD 630 card. 8GB RAM 256GB SSD storage space, optical drive (important) and an integrated 10/100/1000 gigabit ethernet LAN NIC. The operating systems we should implement should be Windows 10 (maybe 11), Windows 10 comes with very good basic computing software applications that can be utilized throughout the marketing and sales departments. Microsoft 365 or Microsoft Business Standard should also be purchased for more advanced applications that these departments can utilize such as Visio, Power point Outlook and Microsoft teams for meetings and conference calls. A router that I recommend is the Net gear Nighthawk X4S, which costs about $335 at the time of this writing. It allows 4k stream content, which is great for online meetings. Wi-Fi speeds up to 2.53Gbps. This router also doubles the bandwidth and increases the range for mobile devices. It offers an all-around strong security tool for things such as intrusion detection/prevention, DOS attacks and firewall management. A modem would also be needed, Spectrum requires all customers who purchase their business packages to utilize their issued modem. For the network switch I recommend the Net gear (JGS524) 24 port gigabit ethernet managed switch, 2 of these would be enough. These switches can be stacked and merged when configured properly under the management and control settings. This switch has an automatic speed and duplex sensor for each port, auto uplink that adjusts for a straight-through or crossover cables. These switches have an intuitive dashboard interface, it also provides extensive and it is scalable. A great printer would a HP page wide pro 577dw, 1 for each department. This machine can print up to 70 pages per minute and it should be able to handle the workload. It has a built in ethernet port and wireless adapter for easy intuitive printing. Printer configurations would need to be set for remote users and users who are utilizing the internal network. Users who are actively connected to the network would need to search for the printer device name and connect/save to it, settings can be configured using the “Group Policy settings”. User configurations and computer configurations can be set using the group policy settings. Remote users would need to utilize a VPN application that can securely connect to the printer machine to initiate print jobs. Bandwidth and device solutions would need to be modern; we need enough bandwidth to send data back and forth for efficient teleconferencing. The average amount of upload/download speeds needed for this would need to be at least 8Mbps download and 2Mbps upload. The Spectrum package we will be getting has more than enough bandwidth and internet speed. Zoom or Skype can be used when conducting these calls. They are free to use and easy to interact with. Since most companies aren’t hosting meetings in a conference room now, due to covid restrictions. I don’t recommend purchasing any video conferencing equipment. Purchasing webcams as needed is recommended, the Logitech-C920 Pro is a great option. They are compatible both MAC and PC systems. This concludes my report.