How easy is it to leave the EMBC?

[apinnard]

How easy is it to leave the EMBC? The teachers, students, senior leadership team and myself here have all had enough of the diabolical service that the EMBC are "providing" us.

 

We have had intermittent internet connectivity for near on six weeks now, and we keep getting passed from pillar to post between Synetrix and Affiniti. I am aware that the EMBC are having major problems at the moment, but I thought that after several months of bedding in time they have had their chance to prove themselves and have done abysmally.

 

I think it's about time to look elsewhere for a corporate provider and look at ditching the EMBC. At least we will have our own control over our own connection and filtering (something we have very limited control of at the moment.)

[AyatollahPies]

Are Synetrix involved in every Broadband Consortium?

[kmount]

Moving away is easy; just do your own thing and pay for it.

 

Previous years, schools in Northamptonshire paid their fruitful sums to EMBC for their internet connection/associated services. This year, county paid for the connections but neglected to allocate the capital otherwise used so in theory nothing was different unless you didn't use EMBC in which case you were stumped.

 

Moving away isn't a big deal, ring EMBC, tell them you want shot of it, job done as its paid up for this year.

 

Ring BT and ask for a leased line to be put in, expect to pay around £25k ish (almost twice what we paid EMBC last year) and its done; install School Guardian or some kind of filtering system etc; make sure its water tight and to Becta standards and crack on.

 

Grumbledook will be in a much better position to give you absolute details but that's about it as far as I can see.

 

EMBC (I presented on this yesterday to our Sixth Form IT students) is cost effective for schools purely on Economies of Scale but very restrictive on other levels; the cost however being what leadership teams focus on.

[kmount]

Oh, and without EMBC you won't be connected to NEN etc unless you make alternate arrangements through an Accredited ISP.

 

Best bet? Ring Grumbledook (Tony Sheppard) @ NCC.

[ctbjs]

Not sure how easy it would be for you but for us it was very simple. Our head just told the LA that we didn't want their 'service' any longer and we researched the best option for the school and purchased it. It has taken around 60 days for completion but will be connected next friday. In the meantime we have been using a bonded adsl solution which has been just fine and much cheaper than the LA offering. In fact prior to the bonded we were on a standard business DSL line paying £29 a month and the connection was faster than that of the LA.

 

Good luck

 

Cost for us was £12600 plus £1750 for BT to relay some fibre that was unserviceable.

[spc-rocket]

Moving away is easy; just do your own thing and pay for it.

 

Previous years, schools in Northamptonshire paid their fruitful sums to EMBC for their internet connection/associated services. This year, county paid for the connections but neglected to allocate the capital otherwise used so in theory nothing was different unless you didn't use EMBC in which case you were stumped.

 

Moving away isn't a big deal, ring EMBC, tell them you want shot of it, job done as its paid up for this year.

 

Ring BT and ask for a leased line to be put in, expect to pay around £25k ish (almost twice what we paid EMBC last year) and its done; install School Guardian or some kind of filtering system etc; make sure its water tight and to Becta standards and crack on.

 

Grumbledook will be in a much better position to give you absolute details but that's about it as far as I can see.

 

EMBC (I presented on this yesterday to our Sixth Form IT students) is cost effective for schools purely on Economies of Scale but very restrictive on other levels; the cost however being what leadership teams focus on.

 

There are bonded sdsl solutions aroundf that are hell of a lot cheaper than leased line. I would expect around 12K.for email filter, web filtering and internet access.

 

Ash.

[kmount]

No SDSL at our exchange, and based on a phone number search nor theirs either.

 

Alternative of course depending wholly upon your needs would be bonded ADSL if you don't need as much upstream.

[russdev]

Also remember there is political issues moving away from an RBC and so you need to consider those well your head does anyway..

 

Russ

[GrumbleDook]

It can be done ... but it can cost, and not just on the connection either. Happy to chat with you about it and get a full list of the issues.

 

But as Russ said ... the decision comes from your Head.

 

Personally, let me know the issues and see where we go from there.

[tom_newton]

Wouldn't worry about SDSL - what do you want upstream speed for particularly? Would have thought a couple of ADSL2+ lines would do better than SDSL for most schools - do correct me if I bark up the wrong tree mind

[kmount]

No LLU provision so no ADSL2+ provision at either mine nor his premises.

 

I know the school in question and they host their own mail server and ultimately if they choose to use county's VLE (or even their own from home) they'll need some juice.