A major electronics and IT retailer with a strong international presence is setting up and upgrading its facilities in the regional capital. They have a 20-year-old, 3-storey building the size of 2 soccer fields with large HR and Finance departments. Call center, IT department with server room, Marketing, RnD, and 6 open visitor/staff interaction areas, security/facilities department and higher management offices take up the rest of the space. In addition, there is a cafeteria and a large staff canteen run by a vendor/caterer which uses wireless point-of-sale (POS) terminals running on smartpads. All departments are to be linked up by LAN cables and with full wireless capability throughout the building and the immediate surroundings (estimate wireless coverage of approximately 10-20m around the company premises). The plan calls for a full wired and wireless coverage running separately. Any staff who unplugs their wired notebook from the LAN should expect fast wireless detection and connection within the company building. The IT, RnD and Food-and-beverage networks are separate, secure internal networks with full access to the Internet. IT, Finance and HR servers need to be security-compliant so they are situated behind a second layer of firewall. All POS terminals are fully wireless with no backup wired LAN. As this is a major MNC, cost considerations come in secondary after adequate capacity planning and management. Design a network diagram with redundancy and ample capacity so that communication will still get through if any single link fails. Specify the speeds of all links, keeping redundancy and capacity in mind. Students need to specify the speed with which all links are communicating. What are the WAN technologies, which should be considered by this MNC, given all the factors above? Conclude by explaining the pros and cons of each technology used, especially considering reliability, security, cost and availability.

Read less