Leased lines

[Jawloms]

Morning,

 

I've heard rumour of a contribution the school can receive of up to £2,500 towards the costs of getting a leased line installed. Does anyone know anything about it please?

 

Thank you

 

Stuart

[FN-GM]

I would be keen to know this as well!!

[HBPS]

interested also

[Michael]

BT offer this as standard on all connections, but just bear in mind it can very easily go over this amount.

 

If you factor in renting plant equipment, labour and digging/replacing tarmac, it's not cheap at all.

[snagrat]

One of our schools needed the road digging up and it cost £1000 just for traffic management. Luckily there was little work so it only cost the school £500 extra.

 

So I agree, £2500 is little when it comes to digging up public paths etc

[SchoolsBroadband]

When bt installs a leased line they let the isp ordering it know what excess construct charges (ECCs) are.

 

This includes digging, drilling, installing tubing and fibre etc.

 

When BT gives the isp the amount they then deduct £2800 from this and that should be the end figure the end user pays. Some isps add percentages onto this however we do not.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[EXA_Mark]

Morning,

 

I've heard rumour of a contribution the school can receive of up to £2,500 towards the costs of getting a leased line installed. Does anyone know anything about it please?

 

Thank you

 

Stuart

 

I suspect what you might have heard about is something like the Digital Growth Vouchers LEP - Superfast broadband and digital skills and the similar one in south yorkshire SFSY Voucher Scheme (and there are other similar schemes around the UK). These give a contribution of up to 50% off of one off costs, such as installations. Unfortunately however schools do not qualify for these, as they are for commercial businesses only with less than 250 employees and usually £50M turnover (ties in to European funding).

 

We have seen unscrupulous VISPs (Virtual ISPs), who resell other ISP services telling schools they can get them and they know how to bypass the system. They don't. All of these new voucher schemes involve a phsyical visit from the LEP to verify things are as said.

 

The other discount, as a few have talked about, is not really a discount but a way that Openreach changed the funding of Excess construction charges (ECCs). A few years ago they increased the base price of installations within Openreach (that is the price the communication providers pay, who buy directly from Openreach, such as Exa), it is not to do with the actual install that the ISP charges, which is likely to be more to cover hardware and installations. When Openreach changed this they set an allowance of £2,800 for ECC's. Which in most cases covers the vast majority if not all of any ECC's meaning customers do not have to pay more than they expected when they signed up. ECC's are the reason any time you order a leased line from pretty much anyone it will say pricing is "Subject to Survey".

 

Like all other providers should do (I know some don't) but if ECC's are discovered with Exa we pass them on at Openreach cost, we do not add margin. And we also show customers the original Openreach ECC's calculations and costs so they can see for themselves where and how the figures are worked out.

 

Of course you can sometimes find huge ECC's that this allowance does not even really dent, but those tend to be for brand new builds, where no ducting or local infrastructure exists or for where it is going through listed, or restricted sites.

 

Any other offer of schools can save a figure (such as the £2,500 you mention) is likely to be either a special time limited offer from a provider or a sales inititiative of the ISP. Such as with ourselves at the moment, those customers who can get DarkLight the usual installation cost is £2,500 but at the moment it is £500. This is nothing to do with a third party (such as SFSY or an LEP), or Openreach but rather it is just our price offer.

 

Hope this helps a little.