MikeGreen Posted March 18, 2016 Posted March 18, 2016 Morning All, I have received an email from a company offering me cheap fibre broadband for the school (300mb for less than £90 per month), we already have a 100mb leased line which costs much more than this, My question is does anybody else have fibre? what are speeds like? the company in question have said that they guarantee that we will receive a minimum of 85% of the speed at all times and it also comes with a 24 hour SLA. Its interested me enough to look in to it but I need more information if anybody is using something similar please can you let me know what you think also anybody else that has any thoughts please can you comment. Kind regards
zag Posted March 18, 2016 Posted March 18, 2016 Which company is it? if its hyperoptic or gigaclear then you are very lucky to be in the area covered and I would be jumping all over it.
MikeGreen Posted March 18, 2016 Author Posted March 18, 2016 So the company who offered it was called cornerstone and the fibre itself would be virgin media.
2ilent8cho Posted March 18, 2016 Posted March 18, 2016 Is that 300 Megabit both up and down? In the world of cloud, the upload starts to become as important as download.
MikeGreen Posted March 18, 2016 Author Posted March 18, 2016 It doesn't actually say so I would guess at it being the download speed
zag Posted March 18, 2016 Posted March 18, 2016 Oh yes quite an interesting new development, see the news here. Cornerstone strike deal with Virgin Media Business | Tees Business | Teesside Business News Looks like its standard cable though, so not a fiber line.
fiza Posted March 18, 2016 Posted March 18, 2016 Looks like its standard cable though, so not a fiber line. Article states "Running on next generation optical fibre cables"
GTX Posted March 18, 2016 Posted March 18, 2016 Iv been speaking to a guy regarding this.. You only get 15mb up. Good thing is. 6 static ips for £5 per month.
matt40k Posted March 18, 2016 Posted March 18, 2016 Iv been speaking to a guy regarding this.. You only get 15mb up. Good thing is. 6 static ips for £5 per month. What about IPv6? Ditch the IPv4 tax
Chris_ Posted March 18, 2016 Posted March 18, 2016 Sounds like the same email as we got earlier in the week. The pricing does sound good, and they say that install is £50 or something insignificant, although there's no Virgin Media available in our area so the install cost will be significantly more!!
GTX Posted March 18, 2016 Posted March 18, 2016 What about IPv6? Ditch the IPv4 tax Just rang them and asked the question, They do support it and will add V6 IP's for no extra cost Sounds like the same email as we got earlier in the week. The pricing does sound good, and they say that install is £50 or something insignificant, although there's no Virgin Media available in our area so the install cost will be significantly more!! We dont have VM around here but they are happy to install Fibre to us for just £50.
PotNoodleTech Posted March 18, 2016 Posted March 18, 2016 So I'm guessing for that price it is going to be a contended connection?
zag Posted March 18, 2016 Posted March 18, 2016 (edited) Article states "Running on next generation optical fibre cables" "Running on" is different to Fibre to the premises usually! Virgin advertise all their copper coaxial cable network as "fiber" even though it isn't. Makes it very confusing. Edited March 18, 2016 by zag
MikeGreen Posted March 18, 2016 Author Posted March 18, 2016 I have asked them a couple of question about the connection and they have offered to send a virgin media engineer to site to tell us what we will and wont be able to achieve. I will update when this has happened for anyone who is interested. 2
caffrey Posted March 21, 2016 Posted March 21, 2016 Which company is this @MikeGreen ? We're based in Teesside too and our leased line is up for renewal this year, I've been quoted about 590 a month for a 300Mb line on a 1 gig bearer for a 5 year contract here. I've also been offered microwave internet.
adamholt1 Posted March 21, 2016 Posted March 21, 2016 Surely at that price it won't be an uncontended line?! If it is, then snap their hands off at that speed with that price!
MikeGreen Posted March 21, 2016 Author Posted March 21, 2016 Hi @caffery its cornerstonebs. I was quoted £80 per month for 300Mbps but the price doesn't include any filtering or firewall etc. 1
Michael Posted March 21, 2016 Posted March 21, 2016 A proper lease line is 100 down and 100 up for example, always the same in both directions. Fibre is what you'd get at home, so 100 down and 15 up - in the world of cloud computing, you will need a lease line. A rebranded home/fibre package just won't cut it. This is why it's comparatively cheap. If you're not bothered about upload, then by all means go for it. It could be a suitable backup line, not a primary connection. 2
Oaktech Posted March 21, 2016 Posted March 21, 2016 "Running on" is different to Fibre to the premises usually! Virgin advertise all their copper coaxial cable network as "fiber" even though it isn't. Makes it very confusing. I called Virgin out on this the other day via twitter, I wasn't rude, I just pointed out that their 'docsis 3' cables can be as good as they say, it's still not fibre... Ended up getting blocked by Virgin! If you have the opportunity, go City Fiber. Gigabit symmetrical connection - they literally just leave with a box on the wall with a pair of LC connectors on it. Your connection just runs straight back to their switches on a bit of singlemode and you have your own Vlan. They can add other people/schools on their network to your vlan and it just acts like one connection, or they can add vlans and bring in other people into your network with correct routing, and it was more than 5k a year cheaper than any other provider and they installed for free.
JoeBloggs Posted March 21, 2016 Posted March 21, 2016 We've got fibre from Virgin point to point (they dug the road up) so we have 100 up and down with 1:1 contention.
SchoolsBroadband Posted March 21, 2016 Posted March 21, 2016 If its basically a re-badged Virgin Media cable modem service that uses DOCSIS then it's never going to give the same service as a proper leased line. Big differences between Virgin's DOCSIS cable modem and Virgin's direct fibre leased lines are Cable Modem is a contended service, leased lines are 1:1, guaranteed speed 24x7x365 Cable modem SLA is nowhere near as good as full fibre in speed, fix time. Ask yourself if this breaks and they can't fix it for 3 days (or longer) how is it going to impact my schools ability to function? What account management do you get that can actually do anything about your circuit? With Leased lines (whichever provider you use) you should get a dedicated account manager that knows what he's taking about. Can that really be afforded in an £80 per month circuit? Cable modems have a slower upload speed than download Leased lines can be upgraded to near enough any speed normally in 100mbit increments on a 1Gbit bearer. It's very similar to the FTTC vs Leased Line argument. My view is that normal FTTC is fine for small to mid sized primary schools so long as you up the care level on the phone line and broadband, but never for a secondary school or a primary of over 300 pupils. Alternatively if you'd like a quote on a proper leased line with integrated content filtering and security then do let me know as we are a wholesale partner of Virgin Thanks Dave 2
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