Broadband Providers

[gselliott]

Hi,

 

The head at the school where I do part time IT Support for is wanting to move away from CLEO and use another (cheaper) provider for their Broadband. This is after receiving the letter stating CLEO's prices are going to increase substantially (to 4x current price).

 

The head has been speaking to a local IT firm and they have said they can provide a 1Mb link to the school for around £50 per month with £300 setup costs, unfortunately I don't have any more details than that but I think this would be bog standard ADSL.

 

The school currently has a 10Mb link and I was just wondering how much of an effect dropping to 1MB would be? The school is very small and only has 25 - 30 Computers , do any of you have a 1MB link and is it suitable for this amount of Computers?

 

Thanks in advance.

[Millgate]

Hi mate,

 

You're not the only one jumping ship. Most schools either are looking at this now or at least talking about it.

 

We deal with this and i can get our broadband specialist to give you a call tomorrow if you like? She can explain how it would effect you and even give you a comparison.

 

Just let me know

 

Cheers

 

Luke

Edited May 25, 2011 by Millgate

[jcollings]

Don't know where you are based in Cumbria but LUNS are able to offer connections to schools. Worth giving Robin Williams or Scott Daniels a shout.

 

The CLEO price hike seems to be seeing many people reviewing their connectivity.

[gselliott]

Thanks for the replies, much appreciated!

 

jcollings - I was looking at LUNS as I know they were connected with CLEO and have suggested to the Head that they contact them to see what they can offer.

 

Luke - Thanks for the reply, unfortunately I don't work at the school full time and it would be down to the head to make the final choice (hopefully with some input from me!). Would you be able to send me some contact details that I could pass onto the head?

 

Thanks again.

[Millgate]

No problem mate. Just use my details below and I'll be happy to help. If/when he calls, just tell him to mention I've been speaking to you.

 

All the best

 

Cheers

[GrumbleDook]

Without wanting to sound as if I am a killjoy, someone trying to be protective of LA /RBC roles or out of touch with reality ...

 

What you get from an RBC is not just raw connectivity. Even if you have a pretty much raw feed there will be a safe level of filtering on it (IWF list at least) as well as access into NEN resources. Then you have network security. If you are putting your own line in then I hope you are going to look at a decent firewall. Just having a router in is not a brilliant option. Then you have the fact that you are likely to be using the RBC local address space ... and this then means putting stuff in place to NAT to the outside world (again ... back to the firewall or router). Do you have on site hosted services such as a website? In which case you are using a public IP to connect into this ... this is likely to be in a public address space allocated to the RBC. If you want to move then you do not take that with you ... this is not a problem though ... you can simply get the DNS pointed to the new IP address ... oh .. DNS ... I take it that you will be getting someone else to host the tag for your domain (easily transferred to someone else) and then getting someone to do your DNS for you ... and email? In all likelihood it is filtered coming in and going out ... and what about the hosting of email?

 

Ok ... and breath ... not aimed at the OP ...

 

@gselliott yes, swapping to an ADSL line could be a good option for you if a small school, but try to get a breakdown of what is being used by the school at the moment and who provides all those other services which can be forgotten about.

[gselliott]

Luke - thanks for the reply I will give the details to the head tomorrow.

 

GrumbleDook - thanks also for the reply, I have raised most of these points with the head when she first told me she was deciding to move away from CLEO \ LEA and have explained that if we do 'go it alone' then there will be other costs to consider for Firewalls etc etc but she is adamant that she wants to go it alone!

 

Luckily the schools website is already hosted by a third party so this is not an issue, but the email is hosted by the LEA so if the ties are also cut with them then yes we will need to look at email hosting as well. DNS is going to be an issue and is something i've not looked into yet if i'm honest!

 

Thanks

[bossman]

@gselliot:

 

LAs will no doubt try to make out that they supply quite a considerable amount of services and something else they spout is the words "COCO compliance" this has something to with security on the LAs WAN to which they have been certified as meeting the criteria.

 

Quite a lot of schools today have moved from the LAs to their own personal ISP and have not suffered in the least on fixed pricing. It is always the problem with LAs who seem to justify a price hike to maintain their support costs when in fact they should streamline to accommodate the large amount of secondary schools they have a hold on.

 

In this world of commerce why should schools be held to ransom over their internet connection, they like everyone in the country or the world for that matter should be able to change their ISP as and when without incurring the large costs which ISPs always subject schools to.

 

BT are offering some great deals at the moment with no installation costs on 3 and 5 year contracts subject to a survey.

[Jonny]

We have moved away from the LA to providing our own internet connection. The sudden price hikes we have had mean that it simply isn't worth dealing with the arrogant idiots that manage the service. They of course refused to consult with anyone other than the head and basically tried scare tactics. Once she scraped them off, no real problems.

 

We run 2 x BT adsl lines with 2 public ip addresses

1 TMG 2010 server for load balancing outgoing traffic between 2 lines and publishing internal services

Smoothwall for the filtering

 

up to 400 simultaneous users, with no problems.

Large downloads are no longer as quick, but that is no real problem.

 

The important thing is we now have a service that meets our needs. No more begging everytime we want a change.

 

And it is cheaper

[GrumbleDook]

Can I also make something clear (again, I am going to sound defensive about LAs / RBCs) but the sudden price hike for so many is not a sudden price hike.

 

In general the cost has stayed the same or even come down for running connections on behalf of schools over the last few years, but the removal of grants started with the requirement for an LA to part contribute money to subsidise connections ... then followed up by the slow decrease of the Harnessing Technology grant and finally the early removal and failure to replace the HT grant. This meant that any subsidy or moving around of costs is no longer possible and, in general, the full cost is now borne by the school unless an LA is willing to provide support.

 

The cost to the school from an LA may also include other things such as subject advice, hands-on support (not technical support) and so on. Again, any subsidies for these will be gone.

 

In some ways you can say that LAs should have just given a full breakdown as to what money goes where and how in the past so that schools, but from personal experience of talking with senior leaders in schools and many Bursars / Business Managers, as long as the price coming in was low they didn't care to see all that. As for only dealing with the Head ... in many LAs you will find that Heads have demanded that things only go through them ... if a school cannot communicate internally then what the heck are LA staff to do? This is a real bind at times trying to talk to the right people ...

 

Damned if you do ... damned if you don't.

[localzuk]

You say potato, I say potato... (Hmm... that doesn't work so well in type).

 

To a school, it is a sudden price hike. What they were paying before, regardless of grants being topsliced, is now increasing.

 

Much like people blaming IT when the internet is down, even if it is an upstream ISP that's having issues, end users have a catch all 'its their fault' response to things.

 

So, it is a price hike.

[irsprint84]

Without wanting to sound as if I am a killjoy, someone trying to be protective of LA /RBC roles or out of touch with reality ...

 

What you get from an RBC is not just raw connectivity. Even if you have a pretty much raw feed there will be a safe level of filtering on it (IWF list at least) as well as access into NEN resources. Then you have network security. If you are putting your own line in then I hope you are going to look at a decent firewall. Just having a router in is not a brilliant option. Then you have the fact that you are likely to be using the RBC local address space ... and this then means putting stuff in place to NAT to the outside world (again ... back to the firewall or router). Do you have on site hosted services such as a website? In which case you are using a public IP to connect into this ... this is likely to be in a public address space allocated to the RBC. If you want to move then you do not take that with you ... this is not a problem though ... you can simply get the DNS pointed to the new IP address ... oh .. DNS ... I take it that you will be getting someone else to host the tag for your domain (easily transferred to someone else) and then getting someone to do your DNS for you ... and email? In all likelihood it is filtered coming in and going out ... and what about the hosting of email?

 

Ok ... and breath ... not aimed at the OP ...

 

@gselliott yes, swapping to an ADSL line could be a good option for you if a small school, but try to get a breakdown of what is being used by the school at the moment and who provides all those other services which can be forgotten about.

 

I agree that there was no 'price hike' because of the grants but we moved away from LA because it was 2k cheaper and a vastly faster Internet connection witht his I forget about Internet issues now and no staff complain as we have none!. The problem for us and other schools were the arrogance that we had no other options plus we had roughly a montht o consider other options and lastly the price kept changing everyday, if the LA gave the last price they offered first we would have prob stayed with the LA.

[GrumbleDook]

I agree that there was no 'price hike' because of the grants but we moved away from LA because it was 2k cheaper and a vastly faster Internet connection witht his I forget about Internet issues now and no staff complain as we have none!. The problem for us and other schools were the arrogance that we had no other options plus we had roughly a montht o consider other options and lastly the price kept changing everyday, if the LA gave the last price they offered first we would have prob stayed with the LA.

 

For some LAs they didn't know what they could offer as they did not know what money was coming in from the Govt or how it was coming in. Most LAs have shed staff by the bucket load to keep certin services going, and they are now also told to put all risk (financial or otherwise) on those who get the money, in spite still having contracts yet to finish their term.

 

If LAs still have to pay up for a contract and the money isn't coming in from schools then the LA has a deficit and cuts other things. It may not affect the school, but still has an impact. And I know people have already said about why are the contracts so long ... that is because the Govt tells you to do that (even the existing one) to get best value and the legal costs and penalties to get out early are usually prohibitive.

 

My general advice to people is to try and stick with the existing service for the length of the existing contract (but try to force changes / improvements, cost reductions where possible) and then see what the marketplace has to offer. Also, don't work in isolation ... when you do finally go to look then work with other schools to negotiate services and costs. Whilst doing a large procurement will bring in costs, as well as the various rules & regs, getting a group together to negotiate is a good thing.

[irsprint84]

For some LAs they didn't know what they could offer as they did not know what money was coming in from the Govt or how it was coming in. Most LAs have shed staff by the bucket load to keep certin services going, and they are now also told to put all risk (financial or otherwise) on those who get the money, in spite still having contracts yet to finish their term.

 

If LAs still have to pay up for a contract and the money isn't coming in from schools then the LA has a deficit and cuts other things. It may not affect the school, but still has an impact. And I know people have already said about why are the contracts so long ... that is because the Govt tells you to do that (even the existing one) to get best value and the legal costs and penalties to get out early are usually prohibitive.

 

My general advice to people is to try and stick with the existing service for the length of the existing contract (but try to force changes / improvements, cost reductions where possible) and then see what the marketplace has to offer. Also, don't work in isolation ... when you do finally go to look then work with other schools to negotiate services and costs. Whilst doing a large procurement will bring in costs, as well as the various rules & regs, getting a group together to negotiate is a good thing.

 

If we had longer to negotiate with the LA things could ve been different but we were told a cut off date to make a decision so we had to look else where

[localzuk]

From our perspective, we started asking for pricing for our internet connection, post academy changeover, back last year. We only got partial pricing handed to us about a fortnight ago. If I go to a commercial provider, I get pricing there and then.

 

LEAs and RBCs *really* need to get their act together over this issue, as this is going to lose them business!

[Jonny]

We were given a month to decide as well. I personally contacted our LA to try and get prices/update on the situation many times, as soon as I became aware there may be an increase and they refused to deal with me or provide any pricing information. The bursar tried as well to no result.

When we refused to renew, that was the first time they made contact, and they did so by contacting the head and resorting to silly scare tactics. I am fortunate enough to have a head that runs the school and is happy delegating, so they were just referred back to me.

 

If they were prepared to consider the needs of the schools rather than trying to force the schools to meet their needs, they would have better luck. As it is, it looks suspiciously like they are (and have been for a few years) engaging in empire building and creating unneccessary expense for schools to ensure their cushy jobs remain - after all, all maintenance, supply etc is contracted out to someone else, yet they seem to have a plethora of managers you have to beg for any changes.

[irsprint84]

I'm happy being able to do changes on the fly

[john]

The other thing which I don't spot being put on here about why costs are "rising" (and I use the quotes as I am someone who has spent a lot of time looking at Internet and working with our LA and other IT Managers in my county on new ISP systems and pushing for change) is that a lot of systems that LAs and RBCs have fitted were designed around having X number of sites at X speed for X years.

 

When you leave / pull out / school closes / become an Academy, that is a loss of a site, but a lot of the contracts don't allow much room for reducing that bill as they are fixed for a set time period, thus the LA is left with a large bill and less income, you could say that was a poor contract, however due to the vast nature of these groups and the teleco-geography of some areas within an RBC / LA coverage it was quite a smart move at the time when the money was plentiful as were the grants.

 

For everyone who pulls out that bill still needs to be paid by someone, that cost will, as the LAs are not getting the grants to keep / top slice (whatever you wish to call it) they can only do only a few things:

Terminate the contract thus cutting you all off in one go and saying go sort yourselves out and use any reserves to pay the termination fee

Split the bill by less sites thus you get an increase in the actual costs you pay (I'm talking about pre-fund reserve contributions here not the bills you saw but the hidden costs which GD mentioned were often not given out as people were not interested in the past)

Go back to the Internet / Network provider and re-negotiate the contracts to reduce costs / service / remove features of the contract etc...

 

Now I am sure some on here would say they should just kill it off job done, but think outside your own town or city, think about the small rural school with say 400 children, it may cost £20K to £30K a year to provide them with a good high speed internet connection. That school most likely cannot find £20K to £30K spare in the budget to pay for Internet Access that is high speed, supports Video Conferencing, publishing services to enable working any-place any-time by both staff and students. That school may, via the RBC / LA systems, only pay half of that for the same service, which yes is a lot of money, however its a lot better price wise than on your own. (This isn't about discussing the quality of RBCs here i'm using an assumption were getting a like for like Internet system without filtering and all the other stuff).

 

I know from my own meetings that the next few years is a risky time for LAs and RBCs as more and more schools look to become academy's and / or leave provision for cheaper better service, there are going to be the large bills to pay and yet no money coming in leading to "price rises" to those left on them who cannot afford alternatives / get alternatives due to geography or be bothered (which will be a large number of primary schools across the country as a large number don't have people like us working in them), these schools and children will suffer and we will end up with a digital divide once again and be back where we were pre-RBCs creation back in the last millennium.

 

So yes I understand you need to look for best value, I myself at my school am doing that as are others in my county and across the country, however you will also need to think how will your feeder schools cope if a large number of secondary schools leave, they will be the bulk of most LA / RBC contracts, if they leave to go elsewhere, the contract and services will become non-viable, thus could you imagine how your feeder schools could cope without quality Internet and support?

[ayoward]

Speaking as I do from an RBC perspective, I can see and have experience from all sides really. If I give you an example, we have had a number of schools in our region wanting to come directly to us for their provision (which is perfectly fine, we would rather they stayed in the fold somewhat than have some profiteering company promise the world and deliver the Outer Hebrides). One of these is a primary school which is probably on the border between two LAs, i.e. as far as you can probably get from the nearest major city either way. They were very disgruntled with their LA provision and wanted to get away from them. When we provided them with connectivity costs, because it was a one off line (and as we are not-for-profit we put absolutely no margin on top of what we were quoted by the telcos) and not part of a bulk buy, it was more than double what they were paying to the LA because they were miles away from the city. If schools go it alone, there will be winners and losers dependent on circumstances of geography, which is fine if you have an "I'm alright jack" attitude which because of the squeeze on budgets will become all the more prevalent, but is that ALL you want to focus on? The bottom line? Is that ALL that is important or is it somehow important to think about the wider education community?

 

We have just come through another process of procuring a regional grid. We have increased the grid's speed tenfold (links are now gigabit into LAs when they were 100mbit) and made it more resilient offering two gigabit links into the grid uncontended (whereas before it was more like a ring) and all for pretty much the same price as before. We have had a couple fewer LAs taking connectivity than we did previously, but we have still managed it. The costs for our services is clearly displayed on our website (non-consortium pricing, so if you are part of the LA they are obviously cheaper still) and we try to be as transparent as we possibly can. The issue in my experience as has been mentioned in previous posts is that LAs have not traditionally broken down what the sum you pay to them actually pays for. Which bit is for connectivity, which bit is for filtering, which bit is for support etc. and it has also been difficult for them to say you can cherry pick which bits you want, for example I want filtering, but I don't want that VLE that you have procured for us. It has been an all or nothing approach and I can understand that from a bulk purchase point of view.

 

The loss of the Harnessing Technology grant has been a massive blow for a lot of authorities as have the cuts to other areas of finance that meant they were able to subsidise a lot of what they used to and are now left trying to divvy up a bill between fewer and fewer schools which eventually will become a house of cards. It will then become an everyone for themselves exercise and for some primary schools and even some secondary schools in the far reaches of Yorkshire, they will have to spend an awful lot of money trying to get decent connection speeds or dust off the old text books and encyclopaedias.

Edited May 27, 2011 by ayoward

[localzuk]

I can understand the issues perfectly. Smaller schools need more financial support to cover their costs. Personally, I've come to question whether running schools in the middle of nowhere is sustainable or economical. But that's another issue.

 

I'm afraid for schools we have to focus on what's good for our children who are here and now. We can't go around thinking about what we do affects other schools, because that isn't getting our pupils the best they can get at our school - which is the legal responsibility of the school to do so...

[ayoward]

I can understand the issues perfectly. Smaller schools need more financial support to cover their costs. Personally, I've come to question whether running schools in the middle of nowhere is sustainable or economical. But that's another issue.

 

I'm afraid for schools we have to focus on what's good for our children who are here and now. We can't go around thinking about what we do affects other schools, because that isn't getting our pupils the best they can get at our school - which is the legal responsibility of the school to do so...

 

That's fair enough then I suppose.

 

Only there is a finite pot of money, so say for example school A had to request budget increase of £20K to keep their broadband provision at a decent speed, schools B, C & D would have to swallow a £7K budget cut to accommodate that wouldn't they? So however you look at it, no one can (or perhaps should) live in isolation. We all chip into the pot as taxpayers, forget about who we work for or our vested interests. As a taxpayer, I expect the government to use my contribution in the most efficient way possible. It's the reason I buy tins of beans in a four pack when I go shopping, because it's cheaper than buying four individual tins. Maybe I'm an idealist. But of course I do understand your point about getting your pupils the best they can get at your school, I have children in school and I expect them to be given the best, but I don't want my daughter in her secondary school to be given the best at the expense of my son in his primary school. Aren't they the founding principles of the welfare state? Why should one child be better provisioned than any other just because of circumstance beyond their control? Doesn't every child matter? Crikey am I starting to become a bit political? I think I'd better stop now.

 

May I just clarify that these are my own views and not those of my organisation, the current or last government or anyone else. Maybe I am delusional. I know I need a holiday.

[localzuk]

Aren't they the founding principles of the welfare state? Why should one child be better provisioned than any other just because of circumstance beyond their control? Doesn't every child matter? Crikey am I starting to become a bit political? I think I'd better stop now..

 

Indeed, but how do you explain some schools being given double the amount per pupil compared with others simply because they're in a rural area? We have schools in this county who have a total of 30 pupils or less. To maintain those schools, it costs more per pupil than any others. So, in effect, those pupils are being given an advantage of tiny class sizes etc...

[ayoward]

Indeed, but how do you explain some schools being given double the amount per pupil compared with others simply because they're in a rural area? We have schools in this county who have a total of 30 pupils or less. To maintain those schools, it costs more per pupil than any others. So, in effect, those pupils are being given an advantage of tiny class sizes etc...

 

Yes, you are quite correct. I don't know how we would solve that. Maybe in the future, if everyone had a decent broadband connection at home then we could just have them in virtual classrooms. I guess some inner city schools get more because they are in deprived areas as well? Maybe communism is the answer, but true communism, not all animals are equal but some are more equal than others.

[ebarr]

I have read the above comments with interest. I started at the school as Network Manager last September, previously working in commercial/business environment. The contract to continue with the LEA had already been signed so we are stuck with it for the term of the contract at least. I am astounded at the attitude of Babcock re the implementaton of this project. Where in any other environment would it be acceptable to give 48 hours notice of the actual changeover of a broadband provider where potentially the business would have half a day without internet? Apart from the issue of cost I have a real problem with a provider determining when a change over of this type takes place. Who is the customer? This is one of the many reasons we will certainly consider changing our broadband supplier when the contract comes to an end.

[RTFM]

We opted out of switching with our LA to YHGFL (no slight on YHGFL, we just didnt want to stay with our LA), went with BT, havent regretted it for a second.

 

Bought in our own filtering, get a great BT connection, we run it all ourselves and we save a packet. A few other schools in the LA did the same and I know 2 of the 3 dont regret it, the other i've not spoken to to ask.