Setting up a network on a large scale: Cost?

[Viridis]

For Technical Writing we have to come up with a proposal to give a fictional committee. My group is talking about revamping the internet services for a dormitory. The walls are too thick to make a wireless network viable so I'm thinking of wiring the entire building with an ethernet network which then connects to the internet source.

Anyone have ANY idea how to estimate how much this would cost? How high-end does a router have to be to handle over a hundred users? I also have no idea how to estimate the cost of labor. :stressed:


The numbers can be mostly complete guesswork because the teacher isn't checking up on them, but I still don't know where to start. Can anyone help?

[krogothwolf]

DHCP Server + 6 24 port gigabit switches is what I would look at for starting something like that.

[Viridis]

Thanks. Researching that method now.

Oh! Another cost I forgot: Maintenance. Would the server take much work the maintain in terms of person/hours?

[krogothwolf]

Originally Posted by Viridis

Thanks. Researching that method now.

Oh! Another cost I forgot: Maintenance. Would the server take much work the maintain in terms of person/hours?

Well, it'll cost in power of course. And would need to stay somewhat cool. Can't have it over heating. But if you only have one server you generally wont have an overheating issue in a normal environment. As for maintain, You'd have to keep it's OS updated, but the DHCP server we have at work has never failed in the 3 years I've worked here(I work in IT as a network specialist) and it really only requires very little maintenance. We check the servers once a day, but unless there is an actual problem you shouldn't have to much to worry about in terms of man hours.