Schools Broadband

[lmrogers]

Hey everyone,

 

I'm working at a school in Kent and our broadband is up for renewal. We are currently with EiS but have a cheaper quote at the minute from Schools Broadband. Has anyone got any experiences with School Broadband that could tell me if they have good customer service? and what their services are like?

 

Cheers

[mthomas08]

Although I can't help with Schools broadband, we too will be in the same boat soon enough.

 

We're looking at a possible relationship with a company which will not only offer a better price on 200MB compared to our current 100MB, but will also be able to provide savings on our filtering.

 

Potentially around 15% savings per year when compared to the 100MB, even when compared to EIS's "Sigh up now for better savings" which actually is about £288 a year...... which over 3 years is £864..

 

I know every little helps but...

 

When you compare the costs of their 200MB the savings are around 25/30%.

 

Once upon a time I was very happy sticking to the same because it provided everything but if another company is willing to do it but cheaper (also more local and already seen their setup)...

[MatthewL]

I've not used personally but not heard anything bad about them and nothing but praise from other network managers who do use them. Plenty of posts on here.

[FN-GM]

One of our primary schools use them. Had issues with support not replying to emails etc, not the end of the world but a bit annoying.

[mrbios]

We only recently (this summer) left them.

 

In the beginning they had some dreadful problems, i think the first month of the service we had less service uptime than we did down, support was frustrating etc. They turned that around and seemed to improve a great deal. The guys in the NOC are brilliant, but the first line support i still found to often seemed very disinterested. I also ended up feeling that the hosted firewall/filtering solution wasn't anywhere near as good as an onsite solution for a site our size.

 

My overall opinion is that there's room for improvement. You wouldn't be making a mistake going with them as an ISP, however I'd be reluctant to recommend the hosted firewall/filtering options unless cost is the number 1 driving factor behind your decision.

[ItsOggy]

I work for a school who has a leased line with them.

 

Very happy with them.

 

Support has always been good whenever I've needed it.

[Nightshade2k]

Also going through this debate given the cost of the LEA provision now in Kent with additional lines costing 3k per annum seems very pricey not sure whether the NEN freebies are worth it (Audio network, British Pathe etc) considering how little they are used here.

[IrritableTech]

ISPs are ten a penny but you need one that understands the education sector. Our users are often trying to circumvent protections in place, we need to comply with various documents from the DfE as well as the prevent duty. Your bog standard lease line reseller may not have the expertise required.

 

We recently renewed with Schools Broadband across our MAT but we also support other schools not in our MAT and have helped them negotiate on contract renewals too. We've found there have been a few hiccups over the last three years but that was really all that they were. The support team are generally very good and I really can't complain at all about up time or bandwidth. Schools broadband are one of the few companies I've found who will either do everything for you (super in a small primary with little technical knowledge) or will let you have the keys to everything and let you get on with it - although they are still there to help if you stuff it up!

 

Remember to compare apples with apples and saving money really isn't the final reason to choose one supplier over another - safeguarding has to take priority. Then it's up to you which comes next, price or service.

[dobsonl]

I have got to admit I am shocked at the prices that EIS are quoting the primary schools in our trust, we are looking at saving each school over £600 a year by changing providers so it seems worth it for the extra little bit of initial work.

[Opendium_Steve]

ISPs are ten a penny but you need one that understands the education sector. Our users are often trying to circumvent protections in place, we need to comply with various documents from the DfE as well as the prevent duty. Your bog standard lease line reseller may not have the expertise required.

 

This is the problem with trying to integrate the ISP and the filtering into a single product. We have always thought it much better to keep them separate - our customers seem to like being able to change ISP without having to change their whole filtering system, and rely on our filtering expertise instead of being restricted to only ISPs that understand schools.

[IrritableTech]

This is the problem with trying to integrate the ISP and the filtering into a single product. We have always thought it much better to keep them separate - our customers seem to like being able to change ISP without having to change their whole filtering system, and rely on our filtering expertise instead of being restricted to only ISPs that understand schools.

 

Now I did contemplate mentioning this option - cheap leased line, add a filter, add a firewall but then it doesn't really come under the comparing apples with apples scenario I was suggesting. The original poster was comparing EiS with Schools Broadband, both providers who offer a complete service. For many schools contemplating the jump from an RBC they've never been given access to filtering or firewalls and staff may prefer a middle ground to start with. All options available of cause and all opinions valid!

[speckytecky]

Iv'e been with SWGfL for the past 12 years and apart from the one notable issue involving web hosting over that snowy winter have found they tick all the boxes still for me.

 

Prompt response and action from Support. Their Filtering is refined for schools. Over the summer they even gave us a FTTC upgrade which now gives us 56.39 Mbps Upload and 18.9 Mbps download. Crazily getting that upgrade gave us a new Router and saved something like £500 on our annual bill.

[Nightshade2k]

I took the decision to weigh up the Schools Broadband option today versus the EIS provision, tbh the gentlemen i spoke to Tom, seemed pretty reasonable and it gave me a little more confidence around considering a switch if necessary knowing i can cover the safeguarding aspect off with familiarity on lightspeed and fortinet, like most IT Staff there is always (reasonably) a fear factor in taking the jump but if it works out more economically viable and can cover the same level of service its worth the risks, plus i really need to consider the redundant line now that we are seeing increased use of O365 and Azure.

[IrritableTech]

I took the decision to weigh up the Schools Broadband option today versus the EIS provision, tbh the gentlemen i spoke to Tom, seemed pretty reasonable and it gave me a little more confidence around considering a switch if necessary knowing i can cover the safeguarding aspect off with familiarity on lightspeed and fortinet, like most IT Staff there is always (reasonably) a fear factor in taking the jump but if it works out more economically viable and can cover the same level of service its worth the risks, plus i really need to consider the redundant line now that we are seeing increased use of O365 and Azure.

 

 

We switched over eight primaries (I think it was eight) from the old RBC provider to Schools Broadband FTTC circuits within term time and some within the school day. Except for one which took a client GPO update to remove the old proxy server (internal issue with AD not SB) the switch over from one to the other was quick and painless - on average only taking half an hour including all the testing. We'd pushed out the lightspeed agent before hand.

 

It was something I was nervous about, but in the end it wasn't really a big deal.

[SchoolsBroadband]

Hello everyone,

 

thank you for your kind comments. @lmrogers if you need any more information or I can help at all then do let me know.

 

We now have about 1,500 schools using our services across the country who take our fully managed Internet, filtering and security services. We've also invested a lot in our network with additional Fortinet & Lightspeed clusters as well as some very big and expensive Cisco kit.

 

Other news we have direct fibre into Google (one of a few ISP's to do so) so YouTube and other Google services are lightening fast. We've also just had new peering agreements setup with Microsoft and Apple to further improve connectivity and latency to high bandwidth destinations on the Internet.

 

There's a lot going on in the industry at the moment regarding safeguarding, technology, speeds and we try our very best to keep on top of it to offer you a top service so we differentiate ourselves from a normal non education specific ISP.

 

If you've any questions please do let me know.

 

Thanks

 

Dave