Backup broadband

[mattianuk]

Hello,

 

Because of our reliance on net access for communicating with parents, I am looking at backup broadband options.

 

What do people go for? Clearly we cannot afford a second normal connection, but could a standard business fibre connection be useful to provide emergency access to text services and our externally hosted website to a designated PC?

 

What do others do? Is it worth it?

[twin--turbo]

ADSL, but we are close to the exchange so get ~17-18Mb

 

but if it's for emergency access then standard 2-4Mb ADSL would probably do the job.

 

if you want to maintain incomming mail (assuming you host your own mail server) then get a service with a static IP and set a Second MX record up.

 

Rob

[jamesfed]

FTTC backup line here; we're in the centre of Oxford so its pretty nippy. Right now its in its own VLAN that allows us unfiltered access to the internet for whatever reasons we may need.

 

If we keep it maybe under review in 2 years time though when we renew our contracts as the main fibre line hasn't died once since installation.

[twin--turbo]

If we keep it maybe under review in 2 years time though when we renew our contracts as the main fibre line hasn't died once since installation.

 

Indeed. SLA's are fairly hot unless you have been cheap.

 

I think in 5 1/2 years there was 2 outages. one caused by the router engineer forgeting to save the config and a power cut rebooting it. ( solved in 3hrs, 2hrs of which were out of normal school hours ). The other whilst a 3rd party contracter was trying to clear ducts to install our new phone lines, they Rodded through our fiber, that took about 7 hrs to fix and was mostly out of hrs and we got claw backs from the SLA.

 

Rob

[mattianuk]

Aye, I appreciate its usage may be rare, but you only need that one time

 

We are also going through an ISP migration under county this year, to virgin from their private BT network - so even if we just do it for a year, could come in handy.

[laserblazer]

In the rare occasion that we can't get access, the main panic is for senior staff and the office to check emails. So I tether my phone to a laptop. The HT and DH have iPads with 3g.

[twin--turbo]

In the rare occasion that we can't get access, the main panic is for senior staff and the office to check emails. So I tether my phone to a laptop. The HT and DH have iPads with 3g.

 

Certainly in the school I was at it was an issue, but not one that people got overly stressed byif itwas off for a few hours... e-mail would still be delivered, most lessons continue as normal, etc.

 

In my new job its one of our core functions that it works.

Rob

[DPrince]

We negotiated a free backup ADSL line with our broadband provider. Never used it, but it would be worth it even if we were paying for it.

[laserblazer]

I'm currently tethered to my phone, we've lost all internet

[tmcd35]

Are you hosting any services locally - webserver, VPN access, e-mail, sort of thing? If so have a look at "EFM" (Ethernet First Mile). It's the replacement to SDSL connections. Speeds upto about 40mbps in both directions are available, and at a fraction of the cost of a full on Fibre line. We're having one put in for out failover here.

[mattianuk]

Another internet blackout this AM. My current thought is, that as we host exchange internally, the limited applications we would be able to actually use could probably be done with a dongle (IE Texting out and website updating)

[Quackers]

We get backup autoswitchover to ADSL on our leased line as standard going to a different exchange to the fibre. Thats with Zen.