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About LinkBacksYes you can!Originally Posted by TechMonkey
Yes you can!
The other issue I have is that we have no SLA between us and the LEA so if there is ever a problem all I get is "It'll be fixed when it gets fixed" they have an SLA with BT who provide the service so they should be able to provide us with one.
Ben
@geoff
Just because you've bought some gigabit cable to wire from the router doesn't mean... :P
My schools(primary) are nominally supplied with 2Mbits/sec SDSL connections to nearby high schools (Where supposedly that have 10, 100 or even 1000Mbits/s)
regards
Simon
Blimey!, that is expensive for sure, is this one to one contention ratio and symetrical? We use NTL DIA 8mb leased line service and have not had any issues or downtime at all except once where due to storm and some building damage the service was reduced to 2mb while they fixed the problem - and it only took them 3 hours to do that so its not bad.
Since our account has now moved over to public sector (the shakeup with the merger etc) we will be getting a upgrade or either 12 or 14mb leased line! with out any more cost!
let me know if you need any costing etc.
Sorry just realised that i clicked on the wrong quote button, Ben i was replying to your message about the 25K that you pay for your service.
Ash.
Just got upgraded to 10MB today
*looks at topic*
*twitches*
Our current connection is probably contended to hell from the LEA's hub to the BT network.
We are out in the sticks so our only real options are some sort of copper solution utilizing BT's network no cable or anything else.
4 bonded adsl lines is going to work out about £13k with the filtering and remote access etc...
We can add another 2 lines into that system before we have to look at changing it or adding another set of bonded lines in.
Ben
We have a 10mb EMBC connection (previously 2mb) which has been reliable of late! which is nice.
It is nice to download items at 1.1mb sec. I usually get this before and after school but when the kids are on i easily 500-700k which isn't too shabby
Robert
As far as I understand it, we pay around 12k a year for 10mb to county. However, given 500 odd schools in the lea, 10mb each... I imagine its contended all the way!
Why on earth is everyone comparing so many *totally* different services here and then complaining about the price?
You can *not* compare xDSL to dedicated circuit (of whatever type) to microwave to wifi etc. They are simply not the same product!
With a dedicated circuit (what most LEAs will provide and are usually very heavily subsidised) you are not just paying for your 'own' line of copper / fiber / piece of string to whichever POP you connect to (although that is a big part of it), you are paying for an uncontended service, you are paying for a symmetrical service, you are paying for a much higher SLA (yes, even against totalcare) and you are paying for onward internet transit as well as the hardware to go on each end. You also get any extra services your LEA might be offering as well as internet transit (content filtering, remote support, finance / ordering systems, payroll stuff etc etc).
With xDSL you are paying for a shared bandwidth service of unspecified speed and unspecified contention (which WILL occur in more than just the exchange level). You get zero guaranteed support from BTw and you get no SLA (although totalcare is an option for supposedly better fault response times). As bandwidth requirements from end users increase, ISPs are VERY heavily subscribing their feeds from BTw - and this will not be changing any time soon. xDSL is not cheap. If you want a 1:1 contention on an 8mb DSL line provisoned by BTw, purely for the bandwidth across BTs ADSL network you would be paying an absolute minimum of £1600 per month before you've even got your traffic anywhere near the internet, or provided any infrastructure, staff or support. You can see from how many people your little £30 has to be paid to effectively provide "your" 8m/bit of bandwidth. You also don't get any other services your LEA might be providing; you just get internet access.
Therefore, stop comparing all the different services to each other! Telecoms services are expensive. You get what you pay for. There are good reasons why schools aren't often pushed towards xDSL / cable. Yes, it's cheaper but certainly not guaranteed to be the better choice. There's also more to external access from within schools than web access.
Not forgetting that some RBCs may include email, filtering, video conferencing gateways etc. in the cost of the broadband, regardless of whether or not you use all those services.
I'm on a better part of the link that leads to MattPant's place.
My school is on a BT LES2 fibre into town (1/2 mile) (We don't share this link with anyone)
From there a 16Mb microwave links all 5 High Schools in the north (together with all primaries, libraries and council offices in the north) -including us - to County Hall 30 miles away.
Until recently when a new web filter was installed with way underpowered hardware (Dansguardian on WAMP - yes, that's TWO crappy/ sluggish WAMP installs here for those of you paying attention!) - our web speeds have been fine. Yeah, D/L speeds don't reach 6/7/800kbs until after school, but all our 300 users (900 kids; 100 staff; 300 client PCs) surf streaming video etc quite happily.
It's all a bit odd too that our LEA said we'd all been upgraded to 10Mbit 5 years ago.
@mattpant: it would be so good to see graphs as demonstrated by srochford... tho' I suspect the LA wouldn't like you to see it!
I really wish this could be made more pick and mix, so you only paid for what you actually needed/used.
Agree with Geoff totally, it would allow schools to implement some things they way they want to and not pay for it to LEAs who decides on this "one size fits all" scenario.
My argument has always been that the LEA/RBC should provide flexibility for large schools who have a higher skills set in both technical and also training ability. I can understand that smaller schools may not want to employ people for implementing things in house and would rather like it to be done by their provide which is fine, but as i mentioned the RBC/LEAs need to look at the larger schools and cater some "special" or flexible service (mix and match or as Geoff said, pick and mix the services).
Someone mentioned that we shoudnt't compare the different services which is fine as they are all different, but i think the provides i.e. RBC/LEA then should state that the 10mb service is local to the nearest pop or distribution point and you are not getting the full 10mb pure internet service out to the UK gateway! but sharing this with other schools and county probably!.
Ash.
@Ash
Without saying too much (because I am not allowed to) there was a public briefing from NCC about the new contract for EMBC on Thursday. Spuffmonkey was there too so he can always be asked to of his perception of what was said.
The new contract is likely to be stripped down to a core layer consisting of connectivity and authentication (based on Shibboleth, which will allow SSO eventually across the whole of the NEN ... but this is an ongoing thing and this is an essential building block of it.)
Then you have the services on top, followed by content/resources.
THe service and cnotent/resources will be bundled into certain packs and you can choose what you want.
There are 4 contenders for the bid and the whole proccess is running late ... but the successful company will be inplace in November of this year to start the transition across from the present Fujitsu contract (Fujitsu are one of the contenders, but with a different combination of partners ... so we can happily say that the Fujitsu Services we use atm will not be the ones who are bidding for the new contract!)
Lessons have been learnt in a major way. There will be a newsletter going out to Northants schools expaling a bit more of this in detail ... about timescales ... possible changes in cost (ie ... it will almost certainly be going down in price ... even if you choose to go for all bundles) and information about further dates where people will get the chance to meet / talk to / wuestion / heckle at / harrass the contenders ... this will be a meeting with people from all over the region.
Each LA in the RBC is doing something different before this big meeting ... and each RBC is allowing different people to go along. Rumour has it the Leicestershire is not allowing that many people ... but I am not sure about others.
A word of warning about RBCs now. The system is a closed system. To get onto the NEN you have to do it either through an RBC or through UKERNA directly. None of the Becta accredited service providers will provide access to the NEN ... the are only accredited because they provide a certain level of service.
Yes, this is not fair ... but it is unlikely to change unless UKERNA and DfES have a change of heart. Over the next 10 years access to certain educational resources for students, teachers and admin staff are likely to be only available through the NEN.
This is advanced warning.
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