Looking for broadband

[JordanT91]

We've recently had a gigabit line installed and our LA are sorting out a service for it (may be a good few months/a year away). I've just seen the prices for the SLA and they seem ridiculously high so I've been looking at alternatives.

 

So far I have a quote for 'FTTP' from Wave9 and leased lines from Exa, Daisy Comms and a local company who provides our SIP line. I'm waiting on a price from Schools Broadband.

 

My question is, do I need a leased line? I understand the benefits for QoS, SLA etc but we aren't a massive school. Going from ~35Mbps to ~1000Mbps will make a huge difference though. There are some plans on the horizon that the increase in bandwidth will definitely make a more pleasent experience.

 

My other question is, for those who have provisoned broadband without filtering, how much should I expect a DfE-approved filtering service to cost?

 

Any recommendations for other companies would also be appreciated.

[sippo]

Aspire TS were the cheapest isp we could find. Cheaper than exa, wave9 and schools broadband.

[JordanT91]

Aspire TS were the cheapest isp we could find. Cheaper than exa, wave9 and schools broadband.

 

That's handy, they are a fairly local company. I'll get in touch.

[sippo]

if you want our contact drop me a DM with your email and will send it over.

[paulkerton]

Having the 1000Mb leased line is absolutely a given. You might want to carry less over it and then have the rest of the capacity for future expansion.

 

So you could have a 100/1000 service, 200/1000 etc

[Michael]

Do you need a lease line? I'd highly recommend one.

 

If you're currently on 35Mb/s > 1000Mb/s, you could save money reducing bandwidth down to say 300-500Mb/s with a decent filtering/firewall solution.

 

The LAs approach seems somewhat odd though - provisioning the carrier, but no actual service. Always better to have one point of contact for both the carrier and service provision in the event something goes wrong.

[JordanT91]

Do you need a lease line? I'd highly recommend one.

 

If you're currently on 35Mb/s > 1000Mb/s, you could save money reducing bandwidth down to say 300-500Mb/s with a decent filtering/firewall solution.

 

The LAs approach seems somewhat odd though - provisioning the carrier, but no actual service. Always better to have one point of contact for both the carrier and service provision in the event something goes wrong.

 

It's been done through some sort of scheme, all schools in the county are getting done - we were just one of the first. Now the team that organises the network services and the broadband SLA need to catch up. But their prices seem very high.

[Primus]

That's handy, they are a fairly local company. I'll get in touch.

 

Aspire are excellent, we've used them for years. They're local to us too.

[Michael]

It's been done through some sort of scheme, all schools in the county are getting done - we were just one of the first. Now the team that organises the network services and the broadband SLA need to catch up. But their prices seem very high.

 

Still - an extremely odd way of going about it, but I fully appreciate your position.

 

From what you're saying (my understanding), the LA have provisioned the carrier (the actual fibre) regardless to each school in your county in turn, but then you can either go through their services or select a third party, like any of the ones named above.

 

My only issue with this, is all providers will make a small margin off the carrier service, just as they will off the firewall/filtering/support. It probably would have made more sense for the LA to negotiate terms beforehand with one of the above who would do all - work the carrier and provide firewall/filtering and support going forward, unless the LA are hell bent on still doing this themselves? The LA should have just focused on the funding, if they have large pots to provide 1Gb/s connectivity.

[mavhc]

Probably don't need a leased line if you can get FTTP some other way.

 

I went with Exa, slightly higher cost, but cheaper once their filtering is included

[Zoom7000]

I highly recommend taking a look at LGfL/NGfL - It's slightly more pricey than most out there, but the value add you get in the package is phenomenal!

[JordanT91]

I highly recommend taking a look at LGfL/NGfL - It's slightly more pricey than most out there, but the value add you get in the package is phenomenal!

Thank you, I didn't realise it was a nationwide thing. I've sent an enquiry.

[SchoolsBroadband]

What line type you need really depends on if you're a primary or secondary school.

 

If you're a secondary school then I recommend a leased line every day of the week.

 

For 95% of primary schools I think FTTP is more than suitable. This also follows advice from the DFE which will be released to schools shortly (I'm part of a working group on broadband specifications with them).

 

When you look at cost of a 1000/115 FTTP with filtering and security included compared to a 100/100 leased line with the same package options they'll roughly be the same price but the 1000/115 FTTP will outperform the 100/100 leased line every day of the week. The SLA isn't quite as good as a leased line as standard but you can purchase enhanced SLA's from the carriers if need be. Fibre faults are far less than copper though and so long as the underlying ISP doesn't oversubscribe their network then it'll be fine for a primary school.

 

We know this from experience as we've about 2,000 schools using our services and we've been offering FTTP for a number of years now using numerous carriers.

 

@JordanT91 I do hope we've now sent you a quote! Do send me a PM if you'd like to chat through things.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

Edited October 21, 2021 by SchoolsBroadband

[Edu-IT]

For 95% of primary schools I think FTTP is more than suitable. This also follows advice from the DFE which will be released to schools shortly (I'm part of a working group on broadband specifications with them).

That'll be nice, maybe they'll throw some funding for it too?

 

 

I've had positive experiences with Wave9.

[SchoolsBroadband]

That'll be nice, maybe they'll throw some funding for it too?

 

 

I've had positive experiences with Wave9.

 

@Edu-IT they have actually. A touch over 500 schools were given free installs on the Rural Gigabit Connectivity scheme. We connected over 50 of those with the maximum ECC cost being over £50,000.

 

There's about to be a new version of this released shortly with more schools eligible for free upgrades with all install costs paid by the DFE.

 

Watch this space. If you'd like to know if you can get it please do let me know as I can put schools forward for it if your current connectivity is poor.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[JordanT91]

What line type you need really depends on if you're a primary or secondary school.

 

If you're a secondary school then I recommend a leased line every day of the week.

 

For 95% of primary schools I think FTTP is more than suitable. This also follows advice from the DFE which will be released to schools shortly (I'm part of a working group on broadband specifications with them).

 

When you look at cost of a 1000/115 FTTP with filtering and security included compared to a 100/100 leased line with the same package options they'll roughly be the same price but the 1000/115 FTTP will outperform the 100/100 leased line every day of the week. The SLA isn't quite as good as a leased line as standard but you can purchase enhanced SLA's from the carriers if need be. Fibre faults are far less than copper though and so long as the underlying ISP doesn't oversubscribe their network then it'll be fine for a primary school.

 

We know this from experience as we've about 2,000 schools using our services and we've been offering FTTP for a number of years now using numerous carriers.

 

@JordanT91 I do hope we've now sent you a quote! Do send me a PM if you'd like to chat through things.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

 

I have, thank you. Quote number 21101908033490.

 

We are not primary or secondary. We are an all-through SEN school. We have as many staff as a secondary school, but a primary school amount of pupils.

 

Your pricing on the FTTP 1000/115 product is quite a bit higher than one of your competitors mentioned in this thread, with all the filtering etc., but at this stage I'm just looking to get an idea of costs and companies who can provide what we need.

Edited October 22, 2021 by JordanT91

[SchoolsBroadband]

I have, thank you. Quote number 21101908033490.

 

We are not primary or secondary. We are an all-through SEN school. We have as many staff as a secondary school, but a primary school amount of pupils.

 

Your pricing on the FTTP 1000/115 product is quite a bit higher than one of your competitors mentioned in this thread, with all the filtering etc., but at this stage I'm just looking to get an idea of costs and companies who can provide what we need.

 

We look after quite a few SEN schools already. Best speak to your account manager and / or our pre-sales technical consultants to talk through your requirements in finer detail.

 

We do a lot more than just broadband and filtering. We're experts in safeguarding and also managed security which is included in our service as standard where we believe we go over and above many of our competitors so it doesn't surprise me that we're not the cheapest.

 

Ultimately that's down to our account manager to get that point across and what you get for your money.

 

Thank you for considering us and do send me a DM if I an help at all.

 

Dave