Internet into your School......

[IanT]

Hi Guys,

Whos your ISP for your schools?

[webman]

Our fabulous RBC, DurhamNET, provide us with an excellent high-speed service via fibre optic cable.

[IanT]

okies thanks, im interested as the school I am going to be working for will want a new provider so Im getting a head start on School ISP's.

IT

[webman]

If you have no requirement or obligation to use an RBC, which a lot of schools do, then good places to start are Zen and Be*. Get an idea of what you need (download/upload speeds, data transfer limits etc) then see what's available at the exchange as far as DSL services go. Also see Easynet and/or JANET.

[IanT]

I was thinking of a normal ISP like Zen or Be* but I cant remember if these too companies do any web filtering etc

I would defo go with be*, use now and used in past.

[somabc]

Something like this?

Ethernet | Leased Lines and Ethernet | Zen Internet

or

BT Wholesale : MegaStream

BT Wholesale : BT Wholesale Ethernet

You could also look at bonded ADSL/ADSL2 depending on your bandwidth requirements.

[IanT]

Was just in the process of finding it on there web site!!

thanks!!

[imiddleton25]

we use Fluidata burst very good

Fluidata Ltd | BURST | 20Mb/s Down, 2Mb/s Up Internet | ADSL2+ | ADSL 2+ for Business

[IanT]

Thanks Guys for all replies, keep them coming.

With some of these companies, Zen, BT etc......are they able to install all the kit for you and get that part up and running?

Thanks

[torledo]

Thanks Guys for all replies, keep them coming.

With some of these companies, Zen, BT etc......are they able to install all the kit for you and get that part up and running?

Thanks

With the ethernet connectivity option the installation cost is going to be considerably more than a traditional 2mbps leased line, atleast the cost of the first years line rental in installation costs alone. Going for a 2meg option on a 10meg bearer gives you the opportunity to scale your bandwith up to 10meg without paying further installation costs [just increased line rental]....but should your requirements go beyond 10meg then you'd have to fork out several thousands for a new installation.

This has been mentioned before but far the cheapest way to procure dedicated internet connecitivity is from your RBC or LEA....you'd get big savings on 10meg connectivity and they'd manage the filtering and firewallling perhaps giving you some option to adjust filtering at the site level.

Going alone with an ADSL2+ is a good option as it's cost effective and provides good speeds, there are several business broadband providers who can provide a managed service....but you could always go with the wires-only option of providing and configuring your own router for the service. You can even procure links from different providers and do load balancing without requiring the ISP to do anything at their end using policy based routing

[dave.81]

We get our bonded solution from exa-networks, they also have a filtering solution for schools although we dont use it due to having smoothwall.

Had them for a couple of years and the service has been excellent, failed twice in 3 years but these where BT problems not EXA.

Although the next step for us will probably be a leased line as we need a lot more upload speed now we are allowing external access to files etc.

[elsiegee40]

We're using RM as our ISP... installed here for the filtering... we also use RM's easyMail. Not sure that I'd actively recommend either as they seem expensive for what we get.

[powdarrmonkey]

+1 for fluiddata

[ahuxham]

We're using RM as our ISP... installed here for the filtering... we also use RM's easyMail. Not sure that I'd actively recommend either as they seem expensive for what we get.

RM here as well on a 8MB 20:1 line. We do our own mail now, however RM still filter (not for much longer as we're going todo it in house)

[spiral]

We use synetrix here, there ok if you don't use there proxy server.