Generic model for estimating wlan infrastructure costs

Abstract

In setting up LAN or WLAN infrastructure, the business has to make careful decisions on the choice of LAN or WLAN infrastructure to be laid for them to have a robust LAN infrastructure as well as have cost effective solution. (Cawley & Harman, 2005) has said that: “there is need for a tool enabling estimating LAN infrastructure costs that would lead to cost effective decisions. It will also provide an opportunity to compare network infrastructure choices which can be deployed in a network.” (p.2). There exist two cost estimation models; Tolly group – 2000 and TIA FOLS – 2005 which is always updated. From the Tolly group and TIA FOLS models, one can be able to estimate costs of having fiber on the vertical and either UTP or fiber on the horizontal using the standardized architectures; distributed or hierarchical star, FTTD/All-fiber and FTTE. Due to the advancement of technologies, there is also need for a tool to estimate the costs of WLAN infrastructure. The WLAN cost estimation tool developed in this thesis can be used by WLAN users or designers to estimate costs of either hierarchical star design, centralized or FTTD design or FTTE design and compare between costs among the three architectures. It can be used to identify which of the standard-compliant architectures is cost effective without any compromise to the computer network performance. Therefore computer network users or designers are able to make decisions as to which standard compliant architecture is the cost optimal solution for their LAN.