Looking for feedback from Schools Broadband customers

[Kyle]

I've been asked to look into alternative internet providers other than our LA. Schools broadband are coming up quite competitive and i was wondering if anyone could give me any feedback who are suing their service?

[ICTDirect_Dave]

Hi Kyle,

 

What connection requirements do you have? We might be able to help you out here.

[Kyle]

Hi Kyle,

 

What connection requirements do you have? We might be able to help you out here.

 

And you are?

[ICTDirect_Dave]

Why ICT Direct of course. Slowly taking over the world. Well Providing competive IT Hardware and Communication solutions for the education sector at least.

[synaesthesia]

I use them both at my main school (secondary) and 3 primaries. Support has been second to none, their guys really know what they're doing and we've been extremely happy with reliability and performance. The small blip we had a fortnight ago caused by Entanet was dealt with extremely well and they called back with updates very promptly. They provide an SLA, more than you can say for some providers in some frameworks.

 

Not really had any problems. We had some initial doubts as to whether they could cope with the load as they appeared to be "new on the scene" when we signed up. They showed this wasn't the case although clearly they had more interest & signups than expected but have very quickly adapted and their service has not suffered as a result. The support is personal and rapid.

Edited April 15, 2013 by synaesthesia

[mrbios]

As someone who isn't yet a customer but will be as of this summer i can only comment on the price, and i have to say of about 8 companies i got quotes from they were by far the cheapest!

 

Really looking forward to abandoning ship from the LA connection

[MattGibson]

Exa-Networks! - Brilliant plus cloud filtering free if required...

[IrritableTech]

I've got a meeting with schools broadband at the end of the week to thrash out what they can offer my schools. Their pre-sales has been very good. They are also very competitively priced, and seem flexible in what they offer.

 

I'll be honest, I'm yet to be convinced by the FTTC technology they suggest for primary schools, but have heard some positive feedback from users. It is very cost effective as long as it can cope with demand.

 

They have recently announced a price cut on fibres after the BT/ofcom ruling and have past that saving on immediately to customers (I think I'm right in saying that).

 

Their standard packages include hosted fortinet and lightspeed, which are both interesting products and offer a double whammy if you are happy with black and white list filtering.

 

We are looking at other providers along side schools broadband, but we hope to have a decision on our future solution fairly soon.

[synaesthesia]

@IrritableTech is right on the savings being passed on

 

We've had a couple of schools upgraded to FTTC recently with SB and the performance is worlds apart from what it was. No problems to speak of yet!

[IrritableTech]

Thanks synaesthesia. It's good to know you're seeing good results with FTTC too.

[gh5000]

I support three independent Prep schools - 1 using LEA 10Mb internet for ~£7000 pa and the other 2 using BT infinity for business with static IPs for ~£50 per month. Obviously extras to add on to the BT infinity connection like filtering but it is still the cheaper option by far (one still managed to get cut off for not paying their bill last week!).

 

I wouldn't be scared of Fttc for 300-400 pupils/100 computers at all.

 

Looked at schools broadband at a High School and it was definitely the cheapest out of all looked at.

[SchoolsBroadband]

I've got a meeting with schools broadband at the end of the week to thrash out what they can offer my schools. Their pre-sales has been very good. They are also very competitively priced, and seem flexible in what they offer.

 

I'll be honest, I'm yet to be convinced by the FTTC technology they suggest for primary schools, but have heard some positive feedback from users. It is very cost effective as long as it can cope with demand.

 

They have recently announced a price cut on fibres after the BT/ofcom ruling and have past that saving on immediately to customers (I think I'm right in saying that).

 

Their standard packages include hosted fortinet and lightspeed, which are both interesting products and offer a double whammy if you are happy with black and white list filtering.

 

We are looking at other providers along side schools broadband, but we hope to have a decision on our future solution fairly soon.

 

You are right indeed, we passed these savings straight on to our customers

 

As a full ISP with our own network we've a very unique offering with our hosted virtualised Lightspeed and Fortigate product offering. We don't simply re-badge a free Linux based content filtering solution or think "hey there's a few bob to be made here let's sell standard business broadband a re-brand it.

 

Our network and services has been developed specifically for the education sector. Other things you get as standard are

 

In line anti virus scanning

Office 365 (primary gold package + all secondary)

Anti spam

Lightspeed content filtering

Lightspeed mobile device management

Lightspeed My Big Campus

Your own dedicated. Fortigate firewall where you can make your own rules and change things instantly!

Fortianalyzer reporting service

Layer 7 application control

Cloud based wireless controller

Installation, rental and management of BT phone line with high care level (on dsl and fttc circuits)

Free upgrade to fttc from dsl when your exchange is upgraded

Free Anti Virus software for all primary schools

Hosting of your .sch.uk domain name

Hosting of your website

Remote VPN access

Free VoIP gateway for all secondary schools saving thousands per annum on ISDN phone line rental

 

If you need any more info send me a pm. Happy to give you a call!

 

Dave

[SchoolsBroadband]

Oh and full integration with Windows Active Directory and Mac Open Directory of course

[Modey]

Out of interest, are you going to be offering the Lightspeed content filtering and other features to existing schools who recently bought into Schools Broadband?

 

Sounds like what you provided before wasn't offering a full featured service, now that you are offering Lightspeed as well.

 

It does sound like it would offer a much more rounded service, as I personally feel just access to the Fortinet firewall services alone is substandard to what we had previously.

[SchoolsBroadband]

Out of interest, are you going to be offering the Lightspeed content filtering and other features to existing schools who recently bought into Schools Broadband?

 

Sounds like what you provided before wasn't offering a full featured service, now that you are offering Lightspeed as well.

 

It does sound like it would offer a much more rounded service, as I personally feel just access to the Fortinet firewall services alone is substandard to what we had previously.

 

Yes we are going to be offering this to existing clients too. I'm not sure if there is going to be a small upgrade cost (we need new on site routers etc).

 

I believe the previous Fortigate only solution is still good, but the Lightspeed does IMO better content filtering and also integration into mobile devices which we are seeing more schools take.

 

If you're not happy about something with your current service please send me a pm or call your local account manager. As one of the owners of our business I want all my customers happy so please do get in touch.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[plexer]

Exa-Networks! - Brilliant plus cloud filtering free if required...

@MattGibson I think you've missed the point of this thread the OP wasn't asking for alternatives he was asking about a specific company.

 

Ben