Spear 1
Milestone Two
Jake Spear
Southern New Hampshire University
IT-212
Michael Gideon
February 6th, 2022
Spear 2
Internet Service Provider
There are many different factors to take into consideration when choosing an ISP such as
speed, security, and reliability. The goal of this report is to determine which ISP in the area is the
fastest, most reliable, and most secure for the new office in Fayetteville, NC, as well as
determine any additional configurations required, followed by a network diagram illustrating the
network configuration
After some research of the area's ISPs, I have narrowed it down to two providers:
Spectrum and CenturyLink.
Spectrum
Download/Upload speeds: 1Gbps/35 Mbps
Security: McAfee Security Suite
Reliability: They advertise 99.9% network reliability on their website.
CenturyLink
:Download/Upload speeds: 940 Mbps/940 Mbps
. Security: CenturyLink by McAfee
Reliability: They advertise 99.95% network reliability on their website
While both ISPs offer great (and free) security suites, and great reliability percentages, there is a
big different in upload speeds which could potentially become a problem if many people are
uploading at the same time.
Spear 3
After careful consideration of both ISPs listed above, I believe the obvious choice to be
CenturyLink. This is largely because of the upload speeds. For a loss of 60 Mbps down, you gain
905 Mbps up, which is a massive gain for such a small sacrifice. Other than speed, both are
about equal in terms of security and reliability.
Additional Configurations
Next, I'd like to go over some software and hardware solutions that could benefit the new
office in Fayetteville, NC. To start it off, I'd like to recommend a subscription to Microsoft 365
Business Standard. Included in this subscription is Outlook for an email domain, PowerPoint for
presentations, Teams for conference calls and meetings for remote employees, 1 TB of storage on
OneDrive, as well as other apps such as Word and Excel.
For a modem, CenturyLink suggests using their gigabit compatible devices listed on
their website. The Actiontec C3000A works with their fiber connection and seems to be one of
the better options on their site. As for a managed switch, I suggest the Cisco Business 350 Series.
This switch provides easy management through the dashboard, robust security, and great
scalability by being able to stack four switches and have them function as a single device with
combined management utilities.
To continue our list of hardware solutions, we move on to printer configuration. Before
choosing a printer, it's important to recognize that there are 25 employees traveling 80% of the
time, so there's no need to go all out on printers if half of the employees will not be in the office
most of the time. Therefore, I am going to suggest 3 Xerox VersaLink C500s. The reason behind
this is because each of these printers works best for between 5-15 people, is able to print 45 ppm,
and is able to be connected to via WiFi or ethernet connection. Additionally, the new executiv