Free 10Gbps connection!

[MatthewL]

Lucky to get a free connection of that speed, maybe a little over kill for a small primary but not bad doing.

 

B4RN are doing well developing their network if anyone hasn't been following them, I am slightly jealous of those that live out that area that can get the service, if they can do this why can the big ones not do the same?

[Michael]

I just have visions of it being plugged into a localised 10/100 switch

 

In all seriousness, it's great the school got such a fast service for free! Be interesting to know what they were on prior?

[hardtailstar]

Wish we got free internet too!

 

Although who is the teacher and who are the visitors?

 

In all the schools I've worked in I'd be shot if I wasnt wearing my staff lanyard and visitors having one on too!

[MatthewL]

All good having this speed but I bet the local infrastructure is shocking!! We've only got a 1Gb connection for organisation as a whole!

 

B4RN supply local places like this with free connections often in return of having a cabinet sited on land or sometimes just to give back to the community it seems.

[SchoolsBroadband]

We already do 10 Gbps connections to schools but alas we have to pay for it from different carriers so can't provide it for free unfortunately although it will be very competitive!

 

Dave

[MatthewL]

Anyone in the B4RN area and have any experience of their network?

[altecsole]

Anyone in the B4RN area and have any experience of their network?

 

Yes, we're a High School with 1650 pupils and 200 staff. We have had a B4RN 1Gbps connection for about 3 years - they only seem to offer the 10Gbps connection to Primary Schools, for some reason? Maybe because they know they'll never use anywhere near it I believe we can upgrade to a faster connection, but we would need to pay more. We have the B4RN cabinet sited on our land, but we don't get any discount for doing so.

 

The connection is excellent, with 1Gbps up and down. Only one or two instances where the connection has gone down (usually by someone accidentally digging through the fibre), but we've been back up and running within the hour.

 

We are an Office 365 school, with high reliance on Email, Teams, and Stream, plus a lot of use of YouTube by staff and Sixth Form. We use Sophos XG as our filter/firewall. So far, the connection has coped without a problem. I highly recommend them.

[MatthewL]

Ah that's interesting about only primaries getting 10Gbps.

 

How do they compare with other bigger ISP's and a similar connection if you have had that before?

[altecsole]

Ah that's interesting about only primaries getting 10Gbps.

 

How do they compare with other bigger ISP's and a similar connection if you have had that before?

 

I don't know what router they provide for primaries, and whether that supports a 10Gbps connection to your core switch, or firewall. I know our Sophos XG only has 1Gbps ports so, other than link aggregation, you're going to be limited on the bandwidth to your core. I suspect it's great for publicity, without adding any additional load to the B4RN network.

 

Before we were with B4RN, we had a 100Mbps link via CLEO, which was then taken over by BT. They made a big deal about how secure it was. And it was, but trying to get any additional services opened up was a nightmare, and took weeks. The B4RN connection has no additional security, so you're responsible for that yourself. External IP addresses are limited - we have four, but that meets our requirements.

 

B4RN is a local company that has grown from a couple of employees, and a bunch of willing volunteers, to quite a big employer in our local area. They don't have the glossy marketing of larger companies, and definitely aren't as corporate. But, if you have a problem, or a question, you can speak directly to the engineers.

[Michael]

I don't know what router they provide for primaries, and whether that supports a 10Gbps connection to your core switch, or firewall. I know our Sophos XG only has 1Gbps ports so, other than link aggregation, you're going to be limited on the bandwidth to your core. I suspect it's great for publicity, without adding any additional load to the B4RN network.

 

Before we were with B4RN, we had a 100Mbps link via CLEO, which was then taken over by BT. They made a big deal about how secure it was. And it was, but trying to get any additional services opened up was a nightmare, and took weeks. The B4RN connection has no additional security, so you're responsible for that yourself. External IP addresses are limited - we have four, but that meets our requirements.

 

B4RN is a local company that has grown from a couple of employees, and a bunch of willing volunteers, to quite a big employer in our local area. They don't have the glossy marketing of larger companies, and definitely aren't as corporate. But, if you have a problem, or a question, you can speak directly to the engineers.

 

You can get a Sophos FleXi Port module which supports 2 x SFP+ like this:

 

 

But as you say, realistically your internal infrastructure would need 10Gbps backbone at the very least, unless you literally have thousands and thousands of users. I can imagine a University using a 10Gbps connection these days.

[chazzy2501]

Our school is about to go from 80/20 (which is 64/16 in reality) to FTTP at 1000/220 using ultrafast.... now I feel a little deflated.

[Michael]

Our school is about to go from 80/20 (which is 64/16 in reality) to FTTP at 1000/220 using ultrafast.... now I feel a little deflated.

 

I really wouldn't - I'd probably say at the absolute most, a small Primary would use far less than 10% of a 10Gbps connection in 2021. In years to come, 10Gbps won't sound so ridiculous anymore, we'll all be talking about 100Gbps

[PaddyNewman]

That is crazy speeds. Without giving too much info away, highest we have is 1Gbps with secondaries (some primaries too....) and no one (ok, maybe during speedtests) has hit their limit, that's large London secondary schools. I can't imagine how much of a 10Gbps connection a primary will use and I also wonder how much you could realistically push through it!

[MatthewL]

We are a corporate organisation and can only dream of a 10Gbps connection, 1Gbps suites our need, although we have multiple for resilience, I could not imagine a connection of that speed.

 

I'd agree overkill for a school like that.

[altecsole]

How do they compare with other bigger ISP's and a similar connection if you have had that before?

 

I probably should also mention that I have a B4RN connection at home - full 1Gbps up and down. I spent 18 months, with a team of volunteers, digging in FTTP around our village. Our previous speed with BT was around 3 Mbps! For domestic customers it's £30 per month, but we were able to save by not having to pay line rental on a BT line - we just use our mobiles for calls.

[MatthewL]

Gotta put the work in but for £30 a month its a good price, cheaper than my 200Mb VM connection!

 

Would you recommend them?

[altecsole]

 

Would you recommend them?

 

Absolutely. No problem streaming 4k content on multiple devices, at the same time. Compared to our previous 3Mbps BT connection, it's no contest. The only thing that's not brilliant is the Wi-Fi signal on the Genexis router, but I believe they've moved to a different model now. We just about get coverage in our house (modern build), but I know people with older houses, with thicker walls, struggle. However, B4RN are very good at assisting people with this and they have a range of products to extend coverage that they are happy to loan to people to try out before they buy. They don't sell them, it's just to assist people, so it's not a case of them providing an inferior product and then trying to sell you something to improve it.

[MatthewL]

That's good to hear, I'd never use a stock router for the likes of WiFi but always good to hear positive reviews.