Moving from LA broadband

[northeast_technician]

Hello, just considering schools options with broadband as the current contract runs out in 2 years time. Have many schools scrapped the LA broadband option and gone it alone? also do you need to make any arrangements to have a connection back to the LA in terms of admin machines?

 

let me know your thoughts and experience on this please.

[sted]

I think to a degree it really depends on the lea. In leeds most of my schools left the old lea provider when they changed name etc. This was because the old system was so hopelessly pants they decided to start again (and now the new version is actually quite good and causes surprisingly few issues considering its the same people I believe they even answer email). As above most o the schools I support moved to exa/schools broadband. Neither is perfect but again I have few problems and most are sorted quickly

[JRowley]

We moved as the connection provided was slow (20Mbit) and unreliable (went down once every two months, sometimes for hours, other times days). Switched to Virgin Media on a 50Mbit fibre package with options to go above that if we need to. It costs slightly more than what the LA were charging however it has definitely been worth it. The internet has never been down during working hours, and has only been down once since it's installation last summer.

[northeast_technician]

We moved as the connection provided was slow (20Mbit) and unreliable (went down once every two months, sometimes for hours, other times days). Switched to Virgin Media on a 50Mbit fibre package with options to go above that if we need to. It costs slightly more than what the LA were charging however it has definitely been worth it. The internet has never been down during working hours, and has only been down once since it's installation last summer.

 

slow? we get 9meg on a good day

[JRowley]

slow? we get 9meg on a good day

 

Well, slow for our needs. Depends where you are situated of course, if you are in the sticks then it's not that surprising I suppose, we are in a large town.

[northeast_technician]

so are we, and the exchange is outside the school fence!

[JRowley]

so are we, and the exchange is outside the school fence!

 

Get on the blower then! 9Mbit is basically unworkable for a school in my view, do they have any plans to upgrade to 50Mbit or above? If not I would move asap.

[northeast_technician]

its supposed to be 40 meg, all the primaries are supposed to get it but nobody gets above 10

 

its got to the point i think where people are so sick they have just given up and waiting for the contract to run down

[JRowley]

its supposed to be 40 meg, all the primaries are supposed to get it but nobody gets above 10

 

its got to the point i think where people are so sick they have just given up and waiting for the contract to run down

 

If it's supposed to be 40Mbit you should guys should all band together and keep at them, ring up daily until it's fixed. If they have to run new cable to resolve it then that's their problem. What does your contract say about them failing to deliver it? Surely you are in a position where you could rip up the contract as they simply aren't delivering it.

[northeast_technician]

havent ever seen it, la spoke to heads about costing etc, heads agreed

about as much as ever came of it

[ellsandell]

Depends on the LA really, here in cumbria we find our LEA Broadband (One Connect/BT Lancs) expensive and the customer service is generally awful. (More so because we are in Cumbria)

 

So we are making the move over the next few months, and are switching our Filtering to smoothwall, which will hopefully save us over £6k over the next three years (minimum as we needed to replace our TMG server onsite to) and bringing services like Moodle onsite.

Edited March 11, 2015 by ellsandell

[SchoolsBroadband]

If you need any advice on moving or want to speak to our many hundreds of customers using our broadband & filtering service so do send me a PM. We've a lot of customers on Edugeek who say nice things about us

 

 

FTTC and EoFTTC have already vastly improved the majority of schools Internet connections for a fraction of the price of BT full fibre circuits. Watch out for G.FAST which is going to start to be rolled out in 18 months time which will increase speeds even more.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[Edu-IT]

Watch out for G.FAST which is going to start to be rolled out in 18 months time which will increase speeds even more.

Part of me wants BT to solve their current mess before starting something new!

[JRowley]

Part of me wants BT to solve their current mess before starting something new!

 

They should really just have responsibility for the network taken away from them, it's a complete shambles.

[SchoolsBroadband]

and as if by magic....

 

 

Ofcom Start Major UK Strategic Review of all things Broadband and Telecoms - ISPreview UK

[JRowley]

and as if by magic....

 

 

Ofcom Start Major UK Strategic Review of all things Broadband and Telecoms - ISPreview UK

 

Now we just need them to actually do something with that review instead of just commenting on it!

[RichCowell]

We moved our internet as soon as we could cos the LEA and never regretted it... We went with Virtue Technologies (Virtue Technologies :: Home) who are offering internet services all over the UK now. I don't think we've had any downtime since we moved several years ago... Edited March 12, 2015 by RichCowell

[EXA_Mark]

Hello, just considering schools options with broadband as the current contract runs out in 2 years time. Have many schools scrapped the LA broadband option and gone it alone? also do you need to make any arrangements to have a connection back to the LA in terms of admin machines?

 

let me know your thoughts and experience on this please.

 

Hi,

 

If you'd like to speak to any of our thousands of schools that use us for our connectivity and content filtering from all over the UK, and of course learn from them of the real pro's AND cons of moving away from the LA just PM me and I'll put you in touch with them, most of them are really happy to help other schools out. No sales pitch from us or quote, unless you ask me for one of course

[Gardinho]

I'll vouch for EXA Networks. Outstanding service. Far superior to our old LA service.

[levell3r]

I'll vouch for EXA Networks. Outstanding service. Far superior to our old LA service.

 

Hi, its always good to hear impartial praise.

Do you mind if I ask what you provisioned for your LEA data extract?

[Gardinho]

PM me if you want to chat on Monday. I can send you my phone number.

[MatthewL]

For those looking to make the change, look at what you get, look at what you want and create a table of what other providers can do with costs and weight it all up. You might pay more but cheap isn't always the best.

 

If you have machines that connect back to the LEA can these services be provided another way i.e. a VPN token or tunnel back to them?

[levell3r]

PM me if you want to chat on Monday. I can send you my phone number.

 

ok, will do.

 

Until monday, then.

Thank you.

[Gardinho]

For those looking to make the change, look at what you get, look at what you want and create a table of what other providers can do with costs and weight it all up. You might pay more but cheap isn't always the best.

 

If you have machines that connect back to the LEA can these services be provided another way i.e. a VPN token or tunnel back to them?

 

You don't have to abandon all services if you change providers. It's not an 'All or Nothing' deal.

 

We get our core internet service through EXA, filtering through lightspeed, and web hosting and other sync services through LEA.

 

It's easy to work our value for money if you itemise what you get to begin with.

Edited March 13, 2015 by Gardinho