Virgin/TRUSTnet/LGfl - moving away from LEA - advice needed!

[Koldov]

Hi All,

 

We have come to the end of an LEA/broadband deal and have been quoted a renewal...

 

However, rather than staying with our current broadband/filtering/firewall ensemble, the LEA has drummed up a deal with a different company and they have chosen a different broadband supplier, this is apparently due to the high line rental charges of our current broadband supplier.

 

This has prompted a site survey and a massive bill for ECC's to put fibre in (currently we have fibre from our original supplier, but the new company cannot use this) and this actually doesn't make the LEA offering very good value for money.

 

With the added aggravation of a change in equipment, digging up the school and down-time, we have looked at Virgin to minimise disruption (how many other local schools need this extra work I don't know). Keep in mind we are a very small primary school (350 children / ages 8-11) without a massive IT infrastructure (ipads, PC's, laptops, servers).

 

However, I am having trouble reading between the lines of the blurb and wondered if anyone else who has moved away from an LEA system to the Virgin offering could highlight the important info, as we are having someone from their business team out to talk with us soon... Especially, what they use for filtering and is it really school managed? Also, this bit - Secure Remote Access tool for staff to access the school network securely from any location - is what? I am also asking the SLT to really count the cost of the other services, as we already have a parent mail system, (Free School Meal Eligibility Checking Service), email, webhosting, DNS...

 

Here is the offering (sorry I know it's a bit Tl;dr, but that's why I'm having trouble picking out the relevant bits from the fluff and marketing):

 

Broadband

 

· Uncontended, dedicated 30Mbps fibre connection to your premises

· 99.9% availability

· Appropriately scaled and configured customer premises equipment, i.e. router/firewall etc.

· Fully synchronised service providing the same full upload and download speeds all the way

· Super-fast broadband and reliability backed by one of the largest private education networks in the world, 2,600+ schools connected

 

Web Filtering

 

· IWF (Internet Watch Foundation) compliant web filtering that is continually updated in accordance with the IWF watch list

· School-controlled and managed with full support and FREE user training

· Easy-to-use secure online management website

· IP-range, Per-User and Time-based web filtering as standard

· No requirement for any additional onsite hardware

· Web filtering service that was designed specifically for use in schools

 

Firewall

 

· Onsite firewall from Cisco ASA range provided to school site at no extra cost

· Fully managed and supported

· Keeps your school’s network, staff and pupils safe from internet borne threats

· Dedicated device at school site, not ‘hosted’ with other schools connected to it.

 

LGfL Membership

 

· Access to LGfL developed, premium, award winning online teaching and learning resources both in and away from school site

· Access to NEN online teaching and learning resources

· Access to a wealth of online safety resources

· Attendance at the annual LGfL conference in London every April

· Routes to procurement via a full European Journal tendering process to prove best value

 

Other services that you will receive as part of the package include:

 

· Full, Enterprise level, Sophos Antivirus for all school machines as well as staff (inc Governors) machines at home and pupil/parent machines at home too

· Hosted Microsoft Exchange ‘business class’ email platform for staff

· Hosted Microsoft Exchange email for pupils with high safeguarding focus on self-harm, radicalisation, cyber-bullying and grooming - coming January 2016

· Office 365 or Googlemail options also included

· MailProtect industry standard email filtering

· Secure Remote Access tool for staff to access the school network securely from any location

· Integrated Authentication - one username and password for all services and resources

· Early Years Login service - personalised, secure authenticated access to resources for younger users

· Personalised application launcher/online learning environment

· Secure File Exchange service

· Secure Cloud Storage and Sharing Service

· Free School Meal Eligibility Checking Service - remove the stigmatism sometimes associated to such claims by parents with this DfE approved online service that will help your school claim more funding such as Pupil Premium

· OpenCheck - Live school status checking service for parents and staff

· ParentComms Mobile App - Free smart phone app to help enhance parental engagement

· Web hosting platform and DNS service

· Help and Support via a Mon-Fri (term time and non-term time) dedicated UK-based helpdesk and 24/7 access to online Support Website

 

Timescale is really short and it seems that unless we either stay with our current fibre broadband provider and their offering or possibly downgrade to a cranky old copper line some other company will lease from BT, or pay thousands in ECC's to upgrade to BT fibre which puts us off anyone who needs that to offer us a service...

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Kol.

Edited November 19, 2015 by Koldov

[Opendium_Steve]

· Uncontended, dedicated 30Mbps fibre connection to your premises

 

Sounds surprisingly slow to me. Do you have any monitoring to give you an idea of how much bandwidth you currently use? That said, for a small school this may be ok.

 

IWF (Internet Watch Foundation) compliant web filtering that is continually updated in accordance with the IWF watch list

 

The schools I know of who are using Virgin connections have a separate filtering system rather than using Virgin's, so you may need to consider the costs of that if the Virgin one isn't good enough. I'm not familiar with the Virgin filter so can't comment on how good it actually is.

 

I would say that the "IWF compliant" bit is more or less marketing BS - the IWF watch list is very small and only covers illegal websites (e.g. child porn). Whilst it's important to be protected from those sites, schools obviously need protection from inappropriate, but legal, content too.

[Koldov]

Thanks for taking the time to read through all that blurb!

 

We currently manage on 10 meg and nothing we do here stresses it out apart from ipad updates, so I'm reasonably sure it will suit us. I haven't asked for a price/speed increment comparison, but will do - if we can squeeze much more from them for a small price rise it may be worth it for future proofing, but as I say currently we do ok as we are a small school and aren't heavily IT led.

 

I was very interested in the filtering obviously from a safeguarding perspective (especially after the Pokesdown Primary School in Bournemouth issue).

 

So I wondered if this...

 

· School-controlled and managed with full support and FREE user training

· Easy-to-use secure online management website

· Web filtering service that was designed specifically for use in schools

 

...meant that the onus would be very much on us to configure?

 

I see that you are not familiar with their solution, but hopefully someone who is can chime in.

 

Maybe this thread would have been better placed in the LGfl forum?

 

Perhaps an admin like @elsiegee40 or @witch could please help?

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Kol.

[Wave9_Lee]

Regarding the 'can't use existing fibre' line. If you are currently on Openreach fibre (I'm guessing you're current incumbent is Updata/Capita) then the fibre can be re-used by practically anyone (there will be spare fibre pairs) including Virginmedia. It's likely that the simply don't want to - VM will take any opportunity to put their own fibre into site wherever they can - it gives them more margin, and once the site is on-net, they will always be in a great position to keep that site for years. So if you firmly ask, there is no technical reason why they can't minimise your disruption. They are able to use BT, C&W, Vodafone and practically any 3rd party tails you can think of. If you want to PM me your site details I can give you more specific info.

 

Regarding the pros and cons of the rest of the offer, I think enough has been said about TrustNet and LgFl on here recently. I would just say that you probably want to consider whether you want all the additional services that are 'bundled' in. If they're all great and exactly what you want, then fine, but if you replace any of them with a 3rd party option, you're effectively paying twice. I personally would prefer to source some of those services separately, from specialist providers who would provide some training etc to improve my skills.

 

Ref your question on filtering; The sponsors on here, us included, who offer filtering, would provide a service for filtering that supports you and your requirements (i.e. totally self-managed, managed service or something in between)

 

cheers

 

Lee

 

Wave 9

[Koldov]

Regarding the 'can't use existing fibre' line. If you are currently on Openreach fibre (I'm guessing you're current incumbent is Updata/Capita) then the fibre can be re-used by practically anyone (there will be spare fibre pairs) including Virginmedia. It's likely that the simply don't want to - VM will take any opportunity to put their own fibre into site wherever they can - it gives them more margin, and once the site is on-net, they will always be in a great position to keep that site for years. So if you firmly ask, there is no technical reason why they can't minimise your disruption. They are able to use BT, C&W, Vodafone and practically any 3rd party tails you can think of.

 

I'm not sure if it was a question that the new services provider "can't" use the existing (Virginmedia) fibre line, but more that they deemed the line rental from them to be a bit too expensive (that is the impression we got).

 

However, it appears to me that from the extra cost of ECC's to put BT Openreach fibre in (we were told a number of schools will have to pay it and that we were in actual fact one of the lowest) and considering that the new Virginmedia/TRUSTnet/LGfl quote matches the new LEA suppliers offering within a close margin, that we would actually be paying thousands for new fibre to be put in for no good reason - which also counteracts any minimal savings made by switching and makes doing so a bit of a farce!

 

No, we are not in a position to use many of the 'bundled' features as we are in contracts for most of them with other suppliers, however they may be utilised going forward and therefore providing added value should they prove worthy (Edugeek recommendation required!) and this all brings another question into the mix, whether having all your 'eggs in one basket' so to speak makes getting the best value by sourcing individual suppliers more difficult and in the event of moving away from the 'complete' solution provider harder (but not impossible obviously).

 

Yes, I do agree that once Virginmedia cable is in, it feels like moving away is a lot of hassle (I have the same feeling at home where I have been on Virginmedia for years and the BT line has long since been disconnected at the exchange and any telephone cabling removed from my house) and yet with SKY and BT new customer offerings giving massive savings, would the reconnection fees and hassle be ultimately worth it?

 

Thanks again,

 

Kol.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Koldov

[fiza]

@Koldov - I would be interested in knowing which supplier you went with in the end? Was it LGfL/Trustnet?

[Koldov]

@Koldov - I would be interested in knowing which supplier you went with in the end? Was it LGfL/Trustnet?

 

Yeah, that was the final option.

 

Have to say it was a bit of a faff (due to IP range changes, working out new web filtering policies and what software was being blocked/needed changing due to old proxy settings, reworking all iPads/laptops due to the same), but those would be the issues with most supplier changes and once done it was quite smooth. Luckily we are a very small school!

 

Kol.