ISP renewal plans?

[nicholab]

Looking for a new ISP my current option are renew with current ISP at new rates, get cost from Wave 9 and EXA networks?

 

Also are most people going with 1GB bearers or going for options like 100mb leased line + FTTC and load balancing?

 

We have a Sophos UTM for filtering by that point the internet is due for renewal.

 

Also it would be good to know if any of ISP offer online backup as well?

[SchoolsBroadband]

Hi @nicholab,

 

We'd be happy to provide you with a quote too. We look after about 1500 schools internet, filtering and security needs across the country and look after quite a few schools in Birmingham as well as having a number of partners based nearby too.

 

I'll send you a pm.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[AlanD]

Start by looking at your traffic graphs. When the best you get cheaply was ADSL the only option was a leased line. Now that business FTTC can deliver 80Mb/s and Virgin Cable can deliver 200Mb/s (actually 300Mb/s in some areas) at costs of around £50 per month schools are beginning to realise (some later than others) that they can save thousands of pounds every year. Yes its contended, but day time contention is almost immeasurable. And Yes, you can get static IP addresses. No you don't get q the same SLA (although there is widespread misinformation that you get a guarantee of "service" with leased lines...but in fact all they are guaranteeing is that you will get a engineer response in that time....and you can get that with FTTC to from ISPs like plusnet. I guarantee if a digger rips out your cable - you will be without your connection for weeks). Even with VoIP (works fine on FTTC etc) and cloud services like Office 365/google the lower upload speeds usually between 15 and 20 Mb/s are fine - and rarely will the graphs show 1/10th of that). Yes if you are running a MAT with domain traffic between schools or doing backup to the cloud (good luck if you ever have to recover a SAN!) then maybe a leased line is the right answer. But start with the right information...get some traffic logs/graphs.

[exa_damon]

Hi Nichola,

We would be delighted to offer a quote for our services. There are so many variables when it comes to choosing a new service, but what is important is that you choose the right connection for your school. As an Internet Service Provider in our own rite, we own and run our own network, which you can imagine has many advantages !We designed and supply our own filtering which exists on every connection and is included in the cost. In addition to that we only supply our services primarily to education and also to some businesses - we do not sell to the residential marketplace. I will PM you some details. Many thanks for your interest.

Edited April 10, 2017 by exa_damon