Broadband Woes

[Tech13]

Ladies and Gents,

 

We are having broadband woes with our connection.

 

What is everyone else delivering for a Primary School (Medium size) with approx 150 Chromebooks and around 50 Pcs online at any one time?

[Wave9_Lee]

There are only a small set of options really, and your choices are limited by what's available at your location and what you can afford.

 

£= Fttc @30-60Mbps (EoFttC if you can get it)

£ = FttC @ 80Mbps (EoFttC if you can get it)

££ = 2 x FttC (Eofftc IYCGI)

££ = FttP up to 1000/115Mbps

£££ leased line 100-1000Mbps

 

+ Backup ideally

 

Most primarys we deal with are migrating to leased line from FttC at the moment, except perhaps in v rural areas where it can be prohibitively expensive (so 2 x fttc next best option)

 

FttP is coming, and DFE have committed every school will have access in the next 3 years, which will be a gamechanger for most primaries, so keep your eye out for that. It may be that you could double up on fttc in the short term rather than commit to a leased line, only to find FttP becomes available a few months later..

 

At the risk of starting a supplier debate in this thread, I do think that a direct internet connection gives better speeds than those that terrminate in shared service clusters in data centres for a lot of reasons. I'm sure there are exceptions, but that's what we find..

 

I'd be happy to review options for your particular site, no obligation obviously.

[Ditto]

Is EofttC and SoGEA different terms for the same thing - if not could you explain the difference. The reason I'm asking is I think I'm getting a quote for my charity HQ for the third option in your list, but just wanted to clarify.

[SchoolsBroadband]

Lee hit the nail on the head with his response.

 

I sit on the steering group for broadband standards by the DFE and the outcome of that is for primary schools to have FTTP when available. See https://www.gov.uk/guidance/meeting-digital-and-technology-standards-in-schools-and-colleges/broadband-internet-standards-for-schools-and-colleges#:~:text=Primary%20schools%20should%20have%20a,1Gbps%20download%20and%20upload%20speed. for the output of that

 

There's a huge push by the DFE and DCMS to get all primary schools connected to FTTP by 2025.

 

If you'd like me to check when FTTP will be available or if your school is on the new RM6095 DPS procurement, then do send me a PM and I'll check it out and give you some options available.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[SchoolsBroadband]

Is EofttC and SoGEA different terms for the same thing - if not could you explain the difference. The reason I'm asking is I think I'm getting a quote for my charity HQ for the third option in your list, but just wanted to clarify.

 

EoFTTC comes with a higher SLA than SOGEA and also with some guaranteed speed element. Its also handed off to ISPs as Ethernet rather than L2TP so we can runs VLANs over the connection which is helpful when your ISP has cloud based services to extend your LAN into (such as our hosted FortiGate firewall solutions)

 

SoGEA simply removes the voice element from the underlying copper service so its slightly cheaper than buying a WLR3 Pstn / Analogue line and then putting FTTC on top of it.

 

SoGEA has been created to help with the big PSTN switch off so customers not able to get FTTP can still get broadband via copper.

 

Hope that helps but happy to embellish further if required.

 

Dave

[Ditto]

Ladies and Gents,

 

We are having broadband woes with our connection.

 

What is everyone else delivering for a Primary School (Medium size) with approx 150 Chromebooks and around 50 Pcs online at any one time?

Similar for me at my charity employers HQ so looking at similar options. However, are you certain it is just the connection - for me, I've already identified that some of our issues could be related to the router/firewall, APs and switches with an outside chance of the structure cabling having fault(s). One frustration is a cabling check. We may just find out that everything is fine, which whilst useful to know, it is looking to be expensive - but I do need to shop around a bit.

[Wave9_Lee]

Similar for me at my charity employers HQ so looking at similar options. However, are you certain it is just the connection - for me, I've already identified that some of our issues could be related to the router/firewall, APs and switches with an outside chance of the structure cabling having fault(s). One frustration is a cabling check. We may just find out that everything is fine, which whilst useful to know, it is looking to be expensive - but I do need to shop around a bit.

 

First thing is to test your connection directly from the router or NTE, with all other users/network removed.