The CEO just told the senior staff he wants a comprehensive teleworking plan on his desk by Friday. You're tasked with providing a comparative analysis of the pros and cons of each option, complete with costs. "Time is money" is as true for teleworkers as anyone else, and in the light of recent corporate IT meltdowns, you've got to get this one right.

Providing Internet access, complete with a specified quality of service (QoS) and firewall protection, for the corporation is one thing. It's only one point of presence, so you know exactly what's going on. However, providing it for 250 teleworkers is quite another situation altogether, fraught with hidden costs and security problems you'll need to solve to make your corporation's teleworking endeavor a success.

And they're off...

Determining service availability is the first step in your analysis. If an option is not available, or fails to meet the corporate needs, it's a nonplayer. The players are many, and we'll break them out into three categories, based on their throughput. Category one -- T-1; Category two -- asymmetric DSL (ADSL), cable modem, ISDN, satellite (one-way or two-way) and wireless; Category three -- ISDN and plain old telephone service (POTS), also known as "dial-up." Let's take a look at these in order of throughput.

POTS is available everywhere, but will cost you $35 or more each month for a second phone line and an ISP account. Alternatively, your teleworkers can dial into your corporate remote access server, but studies show that while the security is increased with a RAS, it also costs about 50% more per teleworker than outsourcing to an ISP. The main benefit of a RAS is its QoS. By using high-quality modems, you can achieve at least a 28.8K bit/sec connection, even in poorer environments. Many ISPs average considerably less throughput during peak hours.

The downside of POTS is the time your teleworker loses waiting for a connection and coping with nonconnects and disconnects during periods of high use. The time that's lost can range between 5 and 30 minutes per day, costing your company $130 per month. Add the additional time it takes to upload and download files and you begin to understand why choosing POTS will result in you paying your teleworker for long coffee breaks while they wait.

ISDN is an idea who's time has come . . . and nearly gone. It costs about $150 to install and $40 per month, but at 128K bit/sec, it's slower than comparably-priced alternatives. Its only saving grace is its two channels can also be used for data (at 56K bit/sec) and voice, making it a decent choice for small branch offices where bandwidth requirements may be minimal.

ADSL is the current rage. Unfortunately, "rage" often describes a customer's mental state after they've waited up to six weeks for the service only to spend another month ironing out the kinks. ADSL provides an average of 512K bit/sec download, and 128K bit/sec upload. It costs about $40 per month, but the setup can range between $0

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