EMBC\Synetrix Costs For next year (East Northamptonshire)

[hillskill]

Hi all,

 

Just wanted to get everyone’s view on this. We are a secondary school and just had our EMBC renewal prices for 2010/11 and 2011/12.

 

Suffice to say we are not happy. Our 2010/11 is around £8000 while our 2011/12 cost as jumped to £23,000 p/a!! This is a massive jump that will cut right into the schools ICT budget as I did not plan for such a huge increase.

 

It’s such a big jump that I am thinking of looking at other educational Broadband providers (there must be other alternatives), as I believe this cost is outrageous for simply supplying broadband. Yes I know EMBC offer lots more but at my school we only use them as broadband and filtering providers.

 

Does anyone know what the implications of moving from EMBC are and if any schools have done it?

 

Thanks in advance!

[synaesthesia]

If you only use them for broadband and filtering, and are able to take on the filtering yourself (find yourself an able box, software of your choice) to a level deemed satisfactory by the LEA then sure, why not. Certainly ask around for prices from other providers but you'll probably find figures very near that from the likes of BT. Also please consult the LEA regarding what constitutes satisfactory filtering and e-safety beforehand, a pm to Grumbledook will do no harm. It's not going to be a simple cut case of running filtering software but the constant upkeep and management of it. Perhaps there's databases ready for use to give a starting point.

[GrumbleDook]

@hillskill

 

There are a few other threads about this around already ... I know you (and many others) are unhappy and I think there are sufficient responses in the other threads to help you run through things you and your school need to ask yourself. This will be discussed next week at Schools Forum too. If you have any specific questions you can email the team here at [email protected].

 

The cost for this year is a proportionate cost ... the rest of the year has already been paid for from the HT Grant (which central Govt has subsequently cut in year by 50% but we have managed the money so there is not the need for this full 50%) and schools have had upgrades and changes of services compared to when you last had bills sent out to you. The costing model was decided upon by the Schools Broadband Working Group and we did talk about it at the last IT Managers' meeting too.