Gov Commits Gigabit Broadband for All England Schools by 2025

[SchoolsBroadband]

What about the section that says "Schools and colleges should have a backup broadband connection to ensure resilience and maintain continuity of service"

 

I don't know of any primary schools that have a backup connection as the cost outweighs the risk, especially with the SLA with the ISP.

Is this the Yorkshireman in me not wanting to pay for something that won't be needed 99.9% of the time?

What do other schools do?

 

We provide a lot of 4G as an emergency backup which doesn't cost the earth.

 

Dave

[SchoolsBroadband]

Talk about FTTP, how does this work in rural areas which do not have FTTP at all? There's no FTTP within 25 miles of here. Some areas are getting the tech installed via the Connecting Devon and Somerset scheme, but those areas that were connected to FTTC via the scheme previously don't appear to be on their radar.

 

It isn't a problem for our existing schools - we've got leased lines in everywhere, but properly rural spots? Out on Exmoor/Quantocks? Tiny schools? They can't afford a full leased line (even though the capability is there due to prior work by our LEA), so are currently stuck on very slow connections...

 

Hi @localzoo

 

the DFE and government have actually been doing quite a lot of rural areas and funding "outside in" for the primary schools. Most of the near 500 schools connected via RGC were rural / had very poor FTTC. I expect to see the same again with the next incarnation for it specifically because they are normally provided for.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[HarryMonkey]

We are a secondary (1200 on roll), only have a 100mb connection and are not seeing any limitations at all. I do think if we utilised OneDrive / Sharepoint more my experience would be different!

 

Trust me, it would. Much different!

 

[msi_school]

Dave I work at a 1500 pupil secondary so this is a different scale but with our registers and email in the cloud do you think a 4G back up would cut it?

[SchoolsBroadband]

Dave I work at a 1500 pupil secondary so this is a different scale but with our registers and email in the cloud do you think a 4G back up would cut it?

 

@msi_school

 

for a secondary school no. But if you have nothing else available i.e. no FTTC or very poor ADSL then it may still be better than nothing.

 

I'd recommend an FTTC as a minimum, ideally FTTP. It all depends on what you have available. We have some schools now taking 2 x leased lines from different carriers rather than FTTC backup. I do think that FTTP backup is sufficient though when available.

 

The best way to ascertain is to look at your existing usage stats which your ISP should be able to give. You should be able to see your increase in traffic over the past xyz years (depending how long you've been with them) which will help you plan as to what will be sufficient for you.

 

You'll have budget constraints and also technical constraints of course as to what type of backup connection you can afford / is available.

 

5G may be ok depending on the availability of it for you as a short term backup as I've seen speeds in the hundreds of Mbps in various locations.

 

Also look at implementing specific QOS / application control profiles when the backup kicks in. This allows you to be prepared for if a backup scenario is invoked and teachers have access to certain mission critical applications such as SIP or MIS. I'd also recommend testing this out of hours and if you can generate traffic to mimic what would happen so you can see if your QOS / application control profiles work.

 

Finally SD-WAN is becoming more commonplace and we should have a solution for this later on in the year so you can use numerous connections in tandem to further your throughput.

 

I hope that helps but if you've any questions do reply or send me a PM.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[localzuk]

the DFE and government have actually been doing quite a lot of rural areas and funding "outside in" for the primary schools. Most of the near 500 schools connected via RGC were rural / had very poor FTTC. I expect to see the same again with the next incarnation for it specifically because they are normally provided for.

From what I've seen, funding is generally provided to do things like install leased lines. Which still ends up providing a considerable running cost in rural areas (eg. looking at a local rural school, the yearly cost for a 100Mbit leased line is £8500 a year, for a school with a capacity of 60 children. FTTP is not on the radar there, and even Connecting Devon and Somerset seems to have missed them out entirely. The only options there are poor speed FTTC or high latency wireless connectivity.

[SchoolsBroadband]

From what I've seen, funding is generally provided to do things like install leased lines. Which still ends up providing a considerable running cost in rural areas (eg. looking at a local rural school, the yearly cost for a 100Mbit leased line is £8500 a year, for a school with a capacity of 60 children. FTTP is not on the radar there, and even Connecting Devon and Somerset seems to have missed them out entirely. The only options there are poor speed FTTC or high latency wireless connectivity.

 

Nationally I can assure you that's not the case.

 

I think you're going to see a lot of positive changes over the next few years with a lot more FTTP.

 

On the RGC scheme we had one school with ECC's of £60,000 for FTTP which the DFE fully paid for.

 

A soon as I hear more from my contacts at the DFE I'll let you know. I've a meeting with them again soon to discuss this specifically.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[StevieM]

What about the section that says "Schools and colleges should have a backup broadband connection to ensure resilience and maintain continuity of service"

 

I don't know of any primary schools that have a backup connection as the cost outweighs the risk, especially with the SLA with the ISP.

Is this the Yorkshireman in me not wanting to pay for something that won't be needed 99.9% of the time?

What do other schools do?

 

This...

 

I think that the most common scenario would be a leased line, with an fttp backup or fttc backup. FttP and FttC will use different routes back to an exchange generally, (and the exchanges are generator protected), so from the school/provider end, you can ensure that the logical routes are different too - i.e we specify different ISPs for backup services so that in the unlikely event of a routing or other config failure, your second link is unaffected.

 

And for the Yorkshiremen, as standard we configure both links as active/active so you can use what you're buying, load balanced, weighted etc. It also means you could have a scenario where your voip on your backup link in normal use, and have it failover to your main link in the event of a fault, and vise versa for data.

We moved to Wave9 from the LA last year and haven't looked back. We now have a 200Mbps on a 1Gbps bearer on VM and FTTP backup configured as active/active.

 

And don't forget that you should ideally use failover hardware and UPS - we will be specifying this as a standard option going forward.

 

Not done this, though...yet!

 

EDIT: For context, we're a 3-form entry KS2 only school.

[Mr.Ben]

From what I've seen, funding is generally provided to do things like install leased lines. Which still ends up providing a considerable running cost in rural areas (eg. looking at a local rural school, the yearly cost for a 100Mbit leased line is £8500 a year, for a school with a capacity of 60 children. FTTP is not on the radar there, and even Connecting Devon and Somerset seems to have missed them out entirely. The only options there are poor speed FTTC or high latency wireless connectivity.

Some of our really rural ones are £5k per annum for 100mb Leased and Point to Point is almost the same.

 

As a Trust we are recommending that those schools use part of their sparsity funding - schools have had an increase in this funding this year.

 

When taken as a whole, some of those 2-3 teacher/40 student schools are better off than their larger counterparts.

[Dartech]

Our school is eligible for this and we've received the Terms and Conditions. In it i'm wary of point 5, which reads:

 

5. Ongoing recurring costs for the service contracted by your school, using the new circuit, remain the responsibility of your school.

 

This seems a bit vague because I do not yet know what the recurring costs for this new circuit would be. Without knowing I'm concerned this could be higher than our current provider's annual cost. The DfE want a response by the 13th December which doesn't leave me much time to find out these details - I have emailed them with my queries. In the meantime does anybody else have experience of this who could kindly provide me with some idea of what the Ongoing recurring costs are likely to be, or where I would find out this information please? I'm not panicking at all given they want a response by the 13th Dec and it's now then 9th!!

[SchoolsBroadband]

You don't actually have to activate the line from the date its installed. If you wanted to you could carry on using your current provider and change technology when suits you.

 

Pricing is dependent on the provider. Some include filtering, security etc and everything you need for a school. Other such as BT retail will just give you a normal business or even residential service on it so prices will vary wildly depending o what's included.

 

I'd be happy to chat through it with you if you'd be kind enough to send me a PM?

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[gpjt]

Can anyone offer any advice regarding the Gigabit Programme. We've recieved the email from the FIbres team saying that we maybe included in the scheme and this has been confirmed today via email requesting us to sign their T&C's by the end of the month.

 

Is this them just funding the capability for the school to utilise a gigabit line? Will this process offer us suppliers to use or do we need to source this ourselves?

 

Any help would be appreciated

[SchoolsBroadband]

Can anyone offer any advice regarding the Gigabit Programme. We've recieved the email from the FIbres team saying that we maybe included in the scheme and this has been confirmed today via email requesting us to sign their T&C's by the end of the month.

 

Is this them just funding the capability for the school to utilise a gigabit line? Will this process offer us suppliers to use or do we need to source this ourselves?

 

Any help would be appreciated

 

So long as its the national Gigabit programme for Schools and not a local LFFN programme then the DFE will pay for the installation of FTTP (normally BT but not always). The carrier *MUST* offer the network wholesale to ISPs (such as ourselves) so you can then choose whichever ISP you want to who can then deliver the service over the carriers infrastructure.

 

Hope that's helpful?

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[gpjt]

Yes! that's correct it is the DFE Gigabit programme.

 

DFE pay for the install of the line and School take on the costs from the ISP, right?

 

I'm just trying to get my head around if it's all worth it, E.G we currently pay £2300 (80/20 line) and have had a leased line quote of £5300 (100Mb/1Gb) which is quite a difference.

[Wave9_Lee]

Normally you would ask your current supplier if they can use the new connection and migrate/upgrade the service - don't forget you would still be liable for any outstanding contract term with your current provider, so makes sense to include them in the discussion.

[gpjt]

Thanks Lee,

 

The Leased line quote is off our current supplier for an upgrade Although excluding the DFE programme information as i've only found out from them today. Big difference for a minor upgrade speed wise.

[EssentialRug]

Yes! that's correct it is the DFE Gigabit programme.

 

DFE pay for the install of the line and School take on the costs from the ISP, right?

 

I'm just trying to get my head around if it's all worth it, E.G we currently pay £2300 (80/20 line) and have had a leased line quote of £5300 (100Mb/1Gb) which is quite a difference.

 

We have a couple schools in this scenario. Our current ISP quoted us FTTP around £2350pa for 160/30 when the infrastructure has been installed

[SchoolsBroadband]

Yes! that's correct it is the DFE Gigabit programme.

 

DFE pay for the install of the line and School take on the costs from the ISP, right?

 

I'm just trying to get my head around if it's all worth it, E.G we currently pay £2300 (80/20 line) and have had a leased line quote of £5300 (100Mb/1Gb) which is quite a difference.

 

well if its a BT Openreach FTTP you can have a 1000/115 FTTP for much less than your leased line

 

 

Dave

[Wave9_Lee]

As Dave says, assuming it's an Openreach then the FttP should be similar to your current FttC type pricing but for 1gbps/115Mbps speed.

 

I can't speak for your current supplier, but in this situation if you were mid-term with fttc (can't quite get used to calling it SOGEA yet) with Wave 9 you could upgrade to FttP with very little fuss. It's harder to move from Ethernet Leased Line to FttP mid-term as it's generally considered a downgrade. You'll usually have a mandate to make use of the FttP service within 12 months of installation, you could potentially opt to have it as a backup in the short term if needed, budget dependant.

 

Bear in mind if you're signing this month, it's likely to be anytime up to a couple of years before it's complete. So think I'd hold off on a leased line upgrade for now, carry on with your fttc on a flexible term if possible, perhaps get a second, if you need more bandwidth in the short term.

 

Goes without saying if you get to the end of your current term and our provider is not being helpful I'd be happy to help (as I'm sure Dave will too!)

[EssentialRug]

Not sure if it helps, but we sent our forms off early January this year, and the ETA given to us was sometime between August and December 2024.

[PrimaryNetMan]

Having gone through the process of recently moving 3 schools from FTTC to some for of FTTP give yourself plenty of time to switch.

 

School 1 could get City Fiber (900/900 £1,890pa) This was the quickest turnaround at around 3 months from placing the order to going live.

 

School 2 couldn't get City Fiber but BT Ultrafast was available (900/115 £2,100pa) This took around 6 months from placing the order to going live. This was with containment already in place.

 

School 3 had not containment available for any FTTP so had no choice other than a Leased line (200/1000 £4,000pa plus eye watering ECC's) This took the longest at 12 months from placing the order to going live.

 

Also Openreach and their subcontractors are the worst. Either turn up middle of the school day unannounced with no DBS and expect to carry out work. If they somehow manage to give you a time, don't expect them turn up either.

[KK20]

I can only dream of FTTP, FTTC would be nice too. As it is we have Wireless point to point. Oh look, its raining outside, so that tree 2 miles away will be playing havoc with SNR