For this network design assignment, you are free to come up with a fictional midsized company engaged in a dot-com business for which you will select the business focus. The company can be a service-oriented or information-provider enterprise. You should note that the company is a start-up and sells no physical products but the company is positioned to manage any type of e-commerce operation online and through its office-based and mobile workforce.

Assume that you are a telecommunications professional hired by this company to design its telecommunications network, serving all management and operations activities. The company has its offices in five different cities across the United States, with its main office in a major city. The company has around 250 employees, which include executives, managers, support staff, salespeople, and technical staff. As the company is new, the size of the client base is small but the company is expected to grow steadily in the foreseeable future. All clients are corporate clients.

Each office has a general manager, office and department managers, and support staff. All executives as well as the technical staff are located in the main office and all the salespeople are mobile. The telecommunications system must support interoffice communications across all locations and with the mobile salespeople. The executives must be able to communicate securely with the general managers, and the general managers must be able to communicate with the office and department managers on a regular basis to get both voice and data information about clients.

In addition, the salespeople must be able to communicate with clients and the main office via voice, e-mail, and two-way videoconferencing. The clients must be able to communicate directly with the general managers and executives in the same way. All communications must be kept secure and then archived as part of the organizational knowledge base of the company that will be used to support decisions across the current enterprise and as the company grows and expands to more locations.

You need to prepare a comprehensive network design proposal for the company. The network design proposal should address all the perceived telecommunications requirements. In addition, the network design should also address any additional telecommunications requirements that you may identify in the process of describing your chosen company and explaining its business and operations. You are required to prepare a formal proposal and a customer-briefing presentation.

n this week's assignment, you will start your assignment by describing your customer and the network requirements of your customer. You may refine the customer's network requirements through the rest of the weekly deliverables.

In addition, you also need to complete the following tasks:

Create a scenario for a fictional midsized company. Work on your proposed technical solution by describing the network topology required to address all the requirements of the scenario. Prepare a table in which you identify the vendor equipment, cost, and other charges, keeping in mind that your design should provide a cost-effective solution. Compare various vendors' costs and other charges. Finally, create a network topology diagram.

Note: Click here for a website that allows you to choose a tool to create a network topology diagram.

Compile your answers to both parts of this assignment in a 4- to 5-page Microsoft Word document.

Support your responses with examples.

Cite any sources in APA format.