Moving Away from LGFL

[Hobbsey]

Hi Guys,

 

We are looking at replacing our current LGFL broadband solution. Has anyone gone through this process? We are also using SIPS for MIS support/off-site backup/DNS + Domain management. Are there any issues regarding the MIS support if we move away from LGFL?

 

TIA

 

Pete

[HereIGoAgain2601]

Hi,

 

We moved away from LGFL - we got lots of resistance from the LA and LGFL to try and scare us into staying. When we did a cost comparison the system was actually quite good value for money if you utilise all of the bundled features and software but as we were literally just using the broadband it was overly expensive. We must have had this conversation 10 times with the LA before they agreed to let us move away. We already had external MIS support so this wasn't an issue. Everything else we already had our own provision in place for the things we wanted.

 

Good luck

[willtech]

I would say their would not be much issue as the MIS Support with SIPS is done over a VPN connector and/or remote tool with them.

 

With Off-site backup I would say it over the internet so should be ok if it something like Redstor. DNS and domains if hosted by SIPS you would be ok, unless you are hosted by LGFL.

 

Something worth noting to be aware of if you are using any of their parts of the subscriptions such as:

Sohpos Antivirus/Intercept X

Adobe Creative Cloud

Malwarebytes Protection

Egress Secure Email

Meraki Mobile Device Management

Sophos Phish

GridStore Backup and Recovery

Secure Remote Access

Web Site Hosting

Mail Protect

[mavhc]

Move your domain to nominet, use cloudflare for your dns (then you can get free wildcard tls certs)

 

I'm using Exa for leased fiber and filtering

[Face-Man]

If it is just about cost I would contact LGFL to see what deal they can do for you.

 

When we did a value analysis based on what it would cost to replace all the services we use the LGFL did work out the lowest cost but it does depend on how many of the "extras" you need to use and what price the alternatives are.

[woreilly]

We moved away from the old Birmingham BGfL provision 3 years ago - saving an absolute ton of money in the process. The only issue we had at the time was access to CRISP - a tool used by SEND teams to access funding for students with EHCPs. That tool is now defunct so no longer an issue. We're with CoConnect now and have just renewed for 3 more years saving even more money and increasing our bandwidth at all sites at the same time. We're moving from 100mbps fibre leased lines at all sites to 200mbps for primaries and full 1gbps at the one secondary. They also supply our managed firewall and filtering - moving from Smoothwall to Fortigate and Netsweeper at renewal.

 

Give [email protected] a shout and he will happily discuss options & deals with you!

[paulkerton]

moving from Smoothwall to Fortigate and Netsweeper at renewal.

Fortigate is good, but... Netsweeper...

[PaddyNewman]

Fortigate is good, but... Netsweeper...

 

I do feel you may have had a baste taste with Netsweeper, but it all depends on how its set up/whats being used/support etc - I won't ever speak ill of anyone, but Netsweeper "under the hood" is a challenge when its not by the book, and its rarely by the book in any instance, everyone has different needs. I deal with it every single day and I actually love it, everything has its faults, even the FortiGate side of things aren't perfect. For perspective without giving anything away I had a case with Netsweeper and Fortinet for the same problem with a specific application going through filtering, Fortinet haven't fixed it, Netsweeper fixed within 3 hours. This was in 2017, and its STILL not fixed

 

Obviously personal experience can sway you, but if you get the option to try Netsweeper with another provider/different variant, I would give it a go. Our core one has been running since 2010/2011 with minimal problems!

 

To the original question though... if you move away from us you'll need to move your domain if we host DNS for it and grab a copy of your rules on the deployment page. I won't attempt to talk you out of it as I don't work for LGfL, but is there something specific making you want to move / something that is missing that you really need? Feel free to fire a PM if you'd rather not advertise!

[exa_nicky]

Hi Guys,

 

We are looking at replacing our current LGFL broadband solution. Has anyone gone through this process? We are also using SIPS for MIS support/off-site backup/DNS + Domain management. Are there any issues regarding the MIS support if we move away from LGFL?

 

TIA

 

Pete

Hi Pete,

I'm the Relationship Manager at Exa Networks and we work with Partners in your area that would be able to support you on all aspects of your request. If you drop me an email [email protected], I can put you in touch with your Account Manager who will be happy to discuss your options and the support we can offer you.

 

Thanks

Nicky