"Joseph S. Gardner" wrote:
>
> Greetings all,
>
> I recently proposed to our human resources dept. that our company
> consider allowing it's employee's to use it's internet backbone
> connection form home during off hours as an employee benefit, some thing
> along the lines of becoming a small scale ISP for it's employees.
If it is a real benefit, ie, part of the employee compensation
package,
then the company in offering this benefit will be required to
perform.
If this is not what you intend, then I would just let it be known
that
there are modems available to dial in. But if you take steps like
give out accounts and passwords, I think that you create a defacto
employee benefit.
If it is a benefit, that has intrinsic value, it would need to be
reported as income to the employee. Question: Does every
employee
get allocated a part of the value, or only those that actually USE
it?
It makes a difference come W2 and income tax time.
By offering this service, you create a layer of administration.
If
you are not accounting or billing it, then the onus of
administration
eases a bit, but you still running web/mail/etc.
If the company only releases the modems certain times of the day,
and
some employees find that unacceptable, then those people will have
to retain their present ISP. Question is, they would feel
somewhat
angry that others are getting free ISP, while they have to pay
because
of scheduling conflict. It gets more interesting if the benefit
is
taxed and computed in the income.
It matters not that you "give it away". A gift is taxable at its
fair market value. You should evaluate all of these factors
before
you decide on doing it.
Consider too that most modem banks bypass all firewalls. You need
to evaluate the security implications of having users on the same
network. Their login names and passwords may become compromised,
and
you do not know who might show up logged into your LAN. Most
ISP's
take this into account as part of the nature of the business. But
a
corporation may not find this possible security breach acceptable.
Only yout company can make this decision.
Give some thought as to the level of service you will offer. If
you are going to offer ISDN or V90/56k service it is going to cost
you more than just a few dollars. To handle incoming 56k calls
you need digital modems with ISDN PRI, ISDN BRI or Channelized T1.
On an analog line no user will exceed 33.6K. PRI has 23 channels,
BRI has two channels, and CT1 has 24 channels. None of this gear
is cheap. A terminal server to handle one CT1 line or ISDN PRI
with 24 modems will set you back about $8,500 or more, plus the
cost
of the line installation etc. BRI can be enabled two lines at a
time per BRI interface. It is somewhat cheaper to set up if you
have well under 24 lines. If you approach 24 lines, the PRI or
CT1
will be cheaper.
Analog modems are easy to conceive of. I can assure you that with
12 lines into a bunch of modems you will be pulling your hair out
keeping the damned things going. Channelized digital equipment is
MUCH easier to administer.
Good luck.
--
Ramon Gandia ============= Sysadmin ============== Nook Net
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