Do I go for 1GB bearer?

[nicholab]

I have a dilemma do I go for a 1GB bearer and 100mb circuit?

 

The maximum we hit was 98.12 Mbps and we seem to average about 30/50 Mbps normally. In the last day the maximum was 61.29 Mbps.

[NB9457]

Any bandwidth management in place? Limiting client connections and download speeds for certain IPs can make a big difference, worth a go before splashing the cash.

[nicholab]

The 3 year contract with our current ISP is up for renewal. Will we be all cloud in 3 years needing 1GB links?

[FN-GM]

I would upgrade. You're nearing that limit now and we're only going to use the internet more and more.

[dhicks]

I have a dilemma do I go for a 1GB bearer and 100mb circuit?

 

It's what we've done, so I'd say yes. Actually, when we came to sign the contract it turned out that we could get 200mbps for the same price, so that's what we've got. Bandwidth usage will quite probably fill the space available - now we have a good, solid connection teachers can use things like video resources in classrooms, and if there's 40 of them doing that at the same the bandwidth adds up. It also allows us to use things like WeVideo for online video editing in a browser - not practical on a slow connection, but works surprisingly well if you have the bandwidth available.

[pete]

What's the opportunity cost for 100/GB vs 100/100?

What will it cost to upgrade mid-contract (100 bearer > 1GB bearer)?

What will it cost to go from 100/1GB to (say) 200/1GB on a 1GB bearer mid-contract?

 

Do you plan to use Azure/Amazon/whoever for offsite DR backup anytime soon?

Are there plans to collaborate with another local school for anything? Especially SLT plans that're squirrelled away from general view.

[synaesthesia]

Very little reason not to, makes it easier to upgrade should plans change in future. It would be daft not to.

[SchoolsBroadband]

it depends how long you think it'll be before you upgrade. You can normally upgrade bearer mid contract term for a one off install fee. If you upgrade in say 18 months time into a 36 month contract then this could be more cost effective that paying the higher rental price from day 1.

 

Dave

[AlanD]

You quote your download (average?) speed. What about upload? I find schools that once needed leased lines (because ADSL only managed 256K upload) now manage very nicely with FTTC with 80Mb down and 20Mb upload and no noticeable contention during the day time. And virgin offer up to 350Mb/s (although persuading them to connect you is another matter) ...and both for a fraction of the cost of a leased line. Running VoIP is no problem with either, and you can aggregate more than one line if you need even more bandwidth.

[Michael]

Yes it's a no brainer, as you can scale to 1Gb as and when you require in 100Mb chunks for example.

[Max_Power]

Gone through a similar process recently and we are increasing to 150mb now with the option to scale up if and when required. Works out more cost effective than going 1GB straight away as that level of bandwidth isn't required straight away. Currently we average around 60MB on a daily basis so plenty of room for growth now and in the future.

[gaz350b]

I know BT are phasing out 100MB bearers, quote for a 200mb/1GB was only 25% more than a 100/100mb so expect the 1GB to become standard.

[nicholab]

Thing is it is 2000 extra in year 1 for just the bearer with no extra bandwidth or I could add an FTTC line with the 100mb leased line to give extra bandwidth. Edited May 23, 2017 by nicholab

[AlanD]

Thing is it is 2000 extra in year 1 for just the bearer with no extra bandwidth or I could add an FTTC line with the 100mb leased line to give extra bandwidth.

 

Did you say what your max/typical upload bandwidth was? I'd be going for 2 x FTTC lines and/or a Virgin 200 or 350Mb/s cable broadband. I accept schools outside FTTC/cable will need to have a leased line - but otherwise....just can't understand why you would need it.

[nicholab]

Did you say what your max/typical upload bandwidth was? I'd be going for 2 x FTTC lines and/or a Virgin 200 or 350Mb/s cable broadband. I accept schools outside FTTC/cable will need to have a leased line - but otherwise....just can't understand why you would need it.

 

We are hitting 40mbit download and about 40mbit outbound I just wondering with cloud servers what will happen. I also don't want to muck it up as we are stuck with it for 3 years. we are already using office 365 for mail I would be keen to know how anyone using chrome books is getting on with bandwidth.

 

Also how have people got on using Wave9 as an ISP?

[bossman]

@nicholab

 

We have a 1GB bearer and we currently have 200MB up and down uncontested leased line from BT, best thing we did was move away from our LA.

 

In 4 years we have had zero outage with BT yet when we were with our LA it was always going down especially when using online exams.

 

Well worth it as you have room to expand especially with everything moving towards the "Cloud"

[AlanD]

40mb/s outbound.... I'm really surprised it's that high...and indeed similar to inbound. Are you using cloud backup? What is all that outbound traffic?. We see around 5 mb/s out but an average that's usually less than 50 in.

[nicholab]

I think online scratch was used a lot this week.

[forkies]

We moved from 20mb LA to a 100mb leased line... now we had to go up to 300mb leased line as we were hitting 90mb during day. Our current usage peaks around 180mb during the day. We use a lot of online resources and have various classes that upload large video files and such during the day hence the need for upload speed to match the download.

 

Opening up BYOD to sixth form has their cap of 50mb hitting peaks too so might have to raise theirs soon.

 

Depends on whether you are going to use more online heavy resources, as others have said FTTC is good as long as you don't need high upload speeds.

[AlanD]

Wondering what is contributing to your 40Mb/s outbound data....it seems really high

 

Do you use cloud backup ?

 

We see an average of around 5Mb/s outbound - and around 50Mb/s inbound....and we use Office 365, Google Docs, etc (but not cloud backup)

[SchoolsBroadband]

Thing is it is 2000 extra in year 1 for just the bearer with no extra bandwidth or I could add an FTTC line with the 100mb leased line to give extra bandwidth.

 

at the moment it only costs an ISP a touch over £1k to upgrade a line from a 100Mbit to a 1Gbit bearer if using BT Openreach fibre. So if you're saving £2kpa and 100Mbit is more than enough for the moment then. I'd recommend staying on the 100Mbit and upgrade when you need to. Make sure you get in writing from whichever ISP you decide to use how much the upgrade cost would be.

 

PM me if I can help any further.

 

Thanks

 

Dave