London Grid Blocks Competitors Emails

[sonofsanta]

I love that memo. 3 of the 4 things you need to factor in costs for are either free (2 x email through Office 365) or included in the EES licensing schools are probably using anyway (anti-virus). Web filtering isn't cheap, no, but the Smoothwall I have on site is orders of magnitude more competent and capable than anything I ever saw from an RBC.

 

And then oh no, you might lose access to services you've not only never used, but probably never even knew existed, and most of them have free public alternatives anyway!

 

As for VOIP telephony... I'm pretty sure people outside education use that, and more people than LGfL can support it.

 

It just looks desperate, doesn't it?

[Opendium_Steve]

As for VOIP telephony... I'm pretty sure people outside education use that, and more people than LGfL can support it.

 

Yep, very widely used, lots of suppliers - the competition is pretty fierce so the prices are low.

 

It just looks desperate, doesn't it?

 

I may be misunderstanding the situation, but from what I've read it sounds like LGfL have signed a 15 year contract with Virgin, but only supplied the schools up to 5 year contracts. Presumably this means that if too many schools leave, they will be completely screwed with no way to cover the cost of the remaining 10 years.

[sparkeh]

I may be misunderstanding the situation, but from what I've read it sounds like LGfL have signed a 15 year contract with Virgin, but only supplied the schools up to 5 year contracts. Presumably this means that if too many schools leave, they will be completely screwed with no way to cover the cost of the remaining 10 years.

 

Well, the BBC article above does say that "The contract is subject to review every three years", I would imagine that the deal is revised every three years depending on how many schools are using it? I can't believe that the deal wouldn't have some kind of provision for schools leaving.

[jayemm]

The LA of the schools where I used to work operated similar scare tactics to stop people from moving from the LA RBC.

 

We were a large secondary and only used the service for an Internet feed, bottom line is we stopped paying circa £30k per year and moved to circa £12k per year. We got a better SLA, double the bandwidth and better service generally.

 

There was no contract with the LA for the service and a number of schools tried to cease mid 'contract' but many did leave in the end. They pulled the 'it will be more expensive for the primary' card, among others.

 

Abuse of power if you ask me and must be against the Financial standards where schools should test the market and promote best value?

[sted]

The LA of the schools where I used to work operated similar scare tactics to stop people from moving from the LA RBC.

 

We were a large secondary and only used the service for an Internet feed, bottom line is we stopped paying circa £30k per year and moved to circa £12k per year. We got a better SLA, double the bandwidth and better service generally.

 

There was no contract with the LA for the service and a number of schools tried to cease mid 'contract' but many did leave in the end. They pulled the 'it will be more expensive for the primary' card, among others.

 

Abuse of power if you ask me and must be against the Financial standards where schools should test the market and promote best value?

 

My experience of primarys leaving the la is that is cheaper for them as well UNLESS they are way out in the stix

[Wave9_Lee]

The LA of the schools where I used to work operated similar scare tactics to stop people from moving from the LA RBC.

 

We were a large secondary and only used the service for an Internet feed, bottom line is we stopped paying circa £30k per year and moved to circa £12k per year. We got a better SLA, double the bandwidth and better service generally.

 

There was no contract with the LA for the service and a number of schools tried to cease mid 'contract' but many did leave in the end. They pulled the 'it will be more expensive for the primary' card, among others.

 

Abuse of power if you ask me and must be against the Financial standards where schools should test the market and promote best value?

 

Bang on ref best value.

 

There is a slight issue in that in their previous form, LA's would spread the costs of connectivity across their user base, and City dwelling schools would effectively be subsidising the expensive rural connections. Once that safety net is removed, rural schools with poor infrastructure, will in general find their price increasing.

[Wave9_Lee]

Yep, very widely used, lots of suppliers - the competition is pretty fierce so the prices are low.

 

 

 

I may be misunderstanding the situation, but from what I've read it sounds like LGfL have signed a 15 year contract with Virgin, but only supplied the schools up to 5 year contracts. Presumably this means that if too many schools leave, they will be completely screwed with no way to cover the cost of the remaining 10 years.

 

It will be a framework type agreement where individual orders are called off as they happen.

[psydii]

Bang on ref best value.

 

There is a slight issue in that in their previous form, LA's would spread the costs of connectivity across their user base, and City dwelling schools would effectively be subsidising the expensive rural connections. Once that safety net is removed, rural schools with poor infrastructure, will in general find their price increasing.

 

That is a very real problem and given where you and the rest of the Wave9 senior team came from, one you know well!

 

To give a very real example I was in a secondary school in NW2 (hardly rural, but strangely under provided for). Nobody would touch it. We couldn't even get a third ISDN2e. We have DACS2 on several POTS lines too.

 

LGFL1 got a fibre line in from BT run in with services by Equinox/Synetrix run over the top

 

LGFL2, Virgin refused to pull in their own infrastructure, but agreed to contract to BT to provide 'the last mile' over the old LGFL1 fibre at no extra cost to the school.

 

The school and many others in the same situation got 100Mb/s lines where they would never have got anything without the Grid.

[SchoolsBroadband]

Just so you know BT now pay the first £2,800 worth of ECC's.

 

Yes the grids did help in the past getting infrastructure in but this money from the public pocket was to enable the schools to get high speeds and a quality service. Not to then say you can only ever use it if you use the grid in the future.

 

Dave