Internet Connection

[stebo730]

We have an Virgin Media Internet link that went down a couple of weeks ago for nearly 48 hrs which has promted us to have a look about for other options.

 

At present we pay around £12,000 for a 6Mbps Leased line with a full 24/7 managed service. we purchased this a few years ago on a 5 year deal (I know, extortionate!).

 

We have now been quoted by Virgin for a 10Mbps connection for around £9000 and around the same by BT.

 

We have also been quoted 100Mbps connection for £14,000.

 

Is this a good deal or would anyone recommend anything else we could look into? The only thing pushing us down the Virgin Route is that everything is inplace (IP Addresses, Equipment etc) and wouldn't require any work to install.

[Sylv3r]

Extortionate? We pay £21k for 10Mbps here!!!

[TronXP]

We pay 17K for a 30Mb leased line

[plexer]

£44,000 for 100mbps fibre throttled at 20.

 

Ben

[Edu-IT]

If your Virgin Media connection has been reliable for you up until this point, and that is the only serious downtime you've had in 5 years, then I'd personally stay with what you have as you know it works for you. You could look at getting a backup ADSL connection. While this single ADSL connection may not serve your whole environment particularly well for a long period at least in the event of a failure on your fibre connection you will still have some link with the outside world.

[spc-rocket]

Hi,

 

I agree with EDU-IT if that the first downtime you had then i would continue with them to be honest but you may want to mentioned that someone else is offering you 100Mb for £14K and see what they come up with i.e. can they match it or offer more for the £9000 i.e. say 20mb or 30mb etc. I would push VM to get you a better deal really i'm sure they don't want to lose a customer and will probably be willing to increase the bandwidth. Worth asking.

 

Ash.

[m25man]

One 48hr outage in 5 yrs is hardly worth throwing your toys out of the pram over..

I doubt that the 48hr outage was due to a simple issue rather than going down the whole route of changing your primary ISP id be trying to negotiate some compo, a reduced rate or some other concession and set up a workable cheap failover solution in case the worse ever happens again.

 

The 5yr deal will be negotiable and any termination fees will probably be waived if you opt to stay with VirginMedia.

 

We just negotiated our way out of a 3yr BT 10mb Leased line after 14 months with only a 20% of the outstanding rental penalty. (£3200)

 

We have switched to an Opal MPLS with ADSL backup with 10mbps on a 100mbps bearer at two sites with a common Internet breakout for less than the BT Leased Line at the primary site.

We did have to pay £3000 to have a new telegraph pole sited to bring the fibre into the second site though.

[Cools]

My quot was..

 

20M on 100M fibre - Install: £2,700 Annual: £8,400

30M on 100M fibre - Install: £2,700 Annual: £8,925

50M on 100M fibre - Install: £2,700 Annual: £9,975

100M on 100M fibre - Install: £2,700 Annual: £12,550

 

You are approximately 1.85km from the exchange. Note that this is the straight line distance - the actual cable length will be longer!

 

the cable length is almost 2.5 km

[Achandler]

We ae gonna be paying £8,500 for 100mb on 100mb with a £2,500 installation cost.

[Cools]

We ae gonna be paying £8,500 for 100mb on 100mb with a £2,500 installation cost.

 

who with..

[sonofsanta]

I just had a 100mb bearer fitted with a 20mb connection down it on a 3 year contract with Vaioni (through Novatech) and it's come to just shy of £25k over the three years. I deliberately requested more cost to be put in the install so that running costs were lower over the next three years, I think quote was around the 2k install & 7.5k annual, but it's actually 4.8k up front and 6.6k annual or something. We're about a mile from exchange.

 

So far it's all running very well for us.

[Achandler]

We are going with Global AXS, they are based near us and we are within Greater Manchester to, so close to a lot of the backbone throughout the UK.

 

Virgin media were doing an offer though recently I heard that was 12k for 100mg on 100mg near enough anywhere (though im sure some places wont count)

[Edu-IT]

My quot was..

 

20M on 100M fibre - Install: £2,700 Annual: £8,400

30M on 100M fibre - Install: £2,700 Annual: £8,925

50M on 100M fibre - Install: £2,700 Annual: £9,975

100M on 100M fibre - Install: £2,700 Annual: £12,550

 

You are approximately 1.85km from the exchange. Note that this is the straight line distance - the actual cable length will be longer!

 

the cable length is almost 2.5 km

How did you find out the actual cable length?

 

We're showing as 2.75km from Exchange and getting ISP prices of ~15k a year.

[Cools]

thats from our current provider Updata who does the WAN for the LA for the schools..

the Site agent gets 2Mbps ADSL whats thats what our school gets. 2mb SDSL we have 8 lines muxed to gether giving us 20mb.

[Cools]

We are going with Global AXS, they are based near us and we are within Greater Manchester to, so close to a lot of the backbone throughout the UK.

 

Virgin media were doing an offer though recently I heard that was 12k for 100mg on 100mg near enough anywhere (though im sure some places wont count)

 

had them out last week that's there prices i posted..

[chrisbyrd]

How did you find out the actual cable length?

 

We're showing as 2.75km from Exchange and getting ISP prices of ~15k a year.

 

Most providers will deliver these connections via OpenReach wholesale 'last mile' products between your school and their network. This pricing is fixed, regardless of how far you are from your local serving phone exchange. The provider's costs will vary depending on how far away (network wise) your *exchange* is from their nearest point-of-prescence. Ie, it doesn't matter if you're next door to your serving exchange, or 5km away from it - your providers costs will be the same (if they're using OpenReach's fibre).