6Foot3 Posted March 16 Posted March 16 Our school's broadband is coming up for renewal in the next 6 months. We haven't had a horrible experience with our current provider, but I thought I would see what's out there. Can anyone recommend anything good in south east?
synaesthesia Posted March 16 Posted March 16 Would always very highly recommend Wave9. Great service, great company.
Jawloms Posted March 16 Posted March 16 LGfL. Can't recommend them highly enough. They include a decent AV and cloud backup, so if you're currently paying for those, you won't need to anymore. They also include all sorts of other stuff. SchoolsBroadband. Can't discourage you strongly enough. See various threads on EduGeek.
DrCheese Posted March 16 Posted March 16 I second avoiding SchoolsBroadband/TalkStraight. They talk a good talk, but that's all they do.
pete Posted March 16 Posted March 16 I like Coconnect enough to renew the contract. Worth giving them a shout and (as of March 2026) you get someone actually technical on the phone when you call.
sigma Posted March 16 Posted March 16 +1 for LGfl. They have gone above and beyond for us. Avoid SchoolsBroadband for reasons given.
TheHyperTechie Posted March 17 Posted March 17 Controversial, but we are SWGfL (RM) and I can't complain. Never had any major outages, filtering and reporting works well, and pricing is fair (in my opinion) I also like how they have introduced off-site filtering for a range of devices, chromebooks, iPads etc. Support is good, just join a live chat through the dashboard - never waited more than 5 minutes to speak to an agent.
Synkrox Posted March 17 Posted March 17 Coconnect here, wires only as we filter onsite with Fortigate. Just renewed for 5 years. Never really needed support, but when I contacted them about renewal options they were very friendly and helpful.
6Foot3 Posted March 17 Author Posted March 17 17 hours ago, pete said: I like Coconnect enough to renew the contract. Worth giving them a shout and (as of March 2026) you get someone actually technical on the phone when you call. We're currently with Coconnect. What do you do for filtering and monitoring? We use CoConnect supplied Netsweeper, but I think it's awful. I might just renew the line and get filtering from elsewhere.
pete Posted March 17 Posted March 17 9 minutes ago, alordcharlie said: We're currently with Coconnect. What do you do for filtering and monitoring? We use CoConnect supplied Netsweeper, but I think it's awful. I might just renew the line and get filtering from elsewhere. Smoothwall for filtering and SW monitor for monitoring in a VM hosted by Coconnect (we're filtering multiple schools). Coconnect can do Smoothwall as well, you just have to ask for it (we made it a condition of getting and retaining our business). Ask to have a chat with Matt. 1
yac2016 Posted March 17 Posted March 17 Go wires only, get a unifi firewall and a cloud filter.... Starlink for backup broadband. Save yourself some money and have a better faster setup.
hailst0rm Posted March 17 Posted March 17 20 minutes ago, yac2016 said: Go wires only, get a unifi firewall and a cloud filter.... Starlink for backup broadband. Save yourself some money and have a better faster setup. UniFi? Has their firewall actually improved now? I've not seen much praise in the past for their firewall products. Cloud filter is great if you can enforce it on every device. Can be trickier on BYOD devices.
yac2016 Posted March 17 Posted March 17 3 minutes ago, hailst0rm said: UniFi? Has their firewall actually improved now? I've not seen much praise in the past for their firewall products. Cloud filter is great if you can enforce it on every device. Can be trickier on BYOD devices. Majority of Unifi kit is now enterprise stuff if you have been to there events last year. Worth testing it again and you may well be very surprised. Filtering is not a issue either as you do it from router level. BYOD is a whole different converstaion.
Adam_Exa Posted March 17 Posted March 17 (edited) 18 hours ago, chrisgreenwood said: EXA are great, rarely get issues Hi Chris, thanks for the recommendation. I'm glad you're having a great experience with us! @alordcharlie, happy to have a chat, to understand your school's requirements and see how we can help. Thanks Adam Edited March 17 by Adam_Exa 1
Wave9_Lee Posted March 17 Posted March 17 On 16/03/2026 at 15:23, alordcharlie said: Our school's broadband is coming up for renewal in the next 6 months. We haven't had a horrible experience with our current provider, but I thought I would see what's out there. Can anyone recommend anything good in south east? Hi @alordcharlie drop me a PM or contact me using my signature info if you'd like some pricing/info, happy to help anytime. Thanks all for the recommendations, Lee
thebatman Posted March 18 Posted March 18 +1 For LGfL, the cost looks high until you take into account all the extras. If you take adavtage of even half of what is avable you are quids in. On top of that, there support is good and quick. It has also been very reliable for us too. The only downside we had was having to change our IP rage we used and the limited number of IPs issed to use. 1
PaddyNewman Posted March 18 Posted March 18 9 hours ago, thebatman said: +1 For LGfL, the cost looks high until you take into account all the extras. If you take adavtage of even half of what is avable you are quids in. On top of that, there support is good and quick. It has also been very reliable for us too. The only downside we had was having to change our IP rage we used and the limited number of IPs issed to use. If you need more, we can look at providing more btw, just reach out and we can have a look Thanks all for the LGfL support! 1
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now