Tom_ONI

Indeed the Linksys SIP handsets appear to be quite good. There are a lot of ropey SIP handsets about.... You can get a bit of discount if you are an education establishment and go to a linksys partner. cheers Tom

Thanks for the good feedback

David, Yes the Cisco.com site has a partner locator. You can search by location and it should show all partner accreditations. Marketing are presently putting together a casestudy on the Luton primary and if they are happy to recieve the call I am happy to put you in touch with them. Also happy to come and see you to discuss or if you are at the edugeek confrence day I will be there? cheers Tom

Firstly to be open an honest I am Education AM for ONI, a Cisco Gold partner and Education partner so can only really comment on the Cisco solution. Whatever system you get, managed is def the way to go. The system should look after itself, choose optimum power and channels, direct users to the best AP (in Cisco world this is CCX). We recently put a primary school wireless and LAN system in Luton (I would be happy to give you the details if you like) with Cisco 1100 series APs and Cisco Wireless LAN Solution Engine. This allowed us to use less APs and get better coverage than their previous system. You really need a wireless survey first to understand the optimum number of APs and positioning. Also if you order through a Cisco Schools partner you will get additional discount, paying a lot less than commercial customers. What LAN have you got to overlay the wireless? How many students are likely to use the wireless at a time? cheers Tom

For one or two screens PC's/laptops hidden away will do it. You can buy LCD's with PC's built in but I wouldn't recommend it, as if one of the other goes wrong you are a bit stuck. Another option is a proper centralised system, this is better for bigger numbers of screens as you can control them remotely, change what they display according to time, push video and text etc. These work by having a media box (usually quite small) plugged into the LAN and the screen. Tom

Media on a Server or some kind of IPTV system is preferable. Can mpeg all the VHS/DVD's up and store them in one location then play them on any PC/laptop. Obviously costs a bit more than a VCR in the short term but it is a nice solution Tom

In Cisco world you are probably ideally looking at 1240 APs (which have external aerials which provide good coverage and are fairly rugged for schools) and either a Wireless LAN Solution Engine for management if on a budget or Wireless LAN controller if you have a bit more budget. With the Cisco Kit and compatible laptops (CCX, a lot of laptops support this) it will allow the network to load balance between APs, useful if you are looking to connect more that 10-15 laptops in a room at once. As said before you def want a manged solution for ease of use etc Also get pricing from a Cisco Schools Partner, they will provide the best quote. Happy to help if you want to drop me an email cheers, Tom

Regards Cisco and Linksys The key difference between Cisco and Linksys is the technology inside the product. With Cisco switches, the technology inside (i.e. the switch silicon) is developed in house by Cisco's own R&D. This is possible because of the cost model for Cisco products, which directly feeds R&D budgets. For Linksys products, the cost model does not allow for such a massive investment into R&D, and therefore most Linksys products are built using off the shelf silicon, and so tend to have less in the way of unique features and functions. Obviously, there is overlap at the high end of the Linksys range and the low end of the Cisco product range. Cisco infrastructure is usually supporting advanced technologies such as IPT IPTV, IPCCTV etc and this is where the advanced technology and R&D really shine. However for a basic switch Linksys should do fine, at the end of the day it is more SOHO than corporate. Tom

To get cisco discount for schools you need a cisco partner who is authorised by cisco as a "Schools Specialist" Partner. A Gold partner with School specilisation should be able to give you the best price. you can find a list on cisco.com ONI are both and I am happy to help you out with a price if you want just drop me a mail The 1240's are a bit more ruggid for school installs and its what we would usually recomend, however the 1130s should also be fine. Both can also be upgraded to lightwieght at a later stage if you decided to put a management system in cheers, Tom

Depending on what you are looking to do having back end management is usually the best way to go if possible. It will allow you to automate who connects to which AP, so balance the load when using multiple APs. It will also allow alot of the management to be handled automatically, such as channels, signal strength etc that can be a real pain without management. In Cisco world the ideal way to go is a Wireless LAN Controller, which controls lightweight (or thin) access points. However this can be expansive. A nice middle ground is a Wireless LAN Solution Engine, which is a mangement system for regular (or fat) access points. You don't get some of the really cleaver stuff (the Wireless LAN controller, for example, will reshape all the signal strenghts if one AP goes down, bosting the sounding APs to fill the signal gap) but will provide central management to control things like signal strenght and channels. The express model will do 50 or 100 APs, normally enough for most school rollouts Really only go for individual APs if you are looking to cover one or two areas for a limited number of people - such as a staff room cheers, Tom

It depends on the configuration of the internal network, but as I understand it you would want to map a private internal address to a public IP. You could then get to your terminal services.

You can certainly have a DMZ with outer, DMZ and innter network. you could have the adsl connected to the ASA, then the ASA to the network and the Termial server, or terminal server then network - there's more than one way to skin a kat as they say. What exactly are you looking to achieve? Tom

If it only happened in the last 6 weeks and there has been changes in the building that is most likely the cause New metal/electricals in particular could cause issues

sidewinder Yes that would be a logical way forward. Some data on the Wireless LAN Solution Engine Express is here http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6379/products_data_sheet0900aecd80410756.html I have sent you a PM Cheers, Tom

I know you said not Cisco so strictly speaking I shouldn't jump in, but I can't help it. On the Cisco front Lightweight/dumb Access Point systems are quite expensive if I'm honest. However you can centrally manage Cisco AP's with a Wireless LAN Solution Engine Express that is within most schools budgets, This is a central management system for normal access points. As for the number of bits of kit, it is just the AP's and the WLSE, and Smartnet(Cisco's maintenance cover) on the WLSE. With an Education Partner it can work out quite reasonable. Tom

My Bad, should have searched first. Although its interesting that networks and security are so interlinked these days this is as much a network issue as security. Tom

Thought this might be interesting to some of you guys. From The Register yesterday: Code breakers have discovered a technique for extracting a 104-bit Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) key in under a minute. Cryptographic weaknesses with the first generation wireless encryption standard have been known for years, but the latest attack requires the capture of just a tenth of the number of packets required by previous approaches. The technique allows for 50 per cent probability of the recovery of a 104-bit WEP key in around a minute (on a 802.11g network running at full speed), and with the capture of 40,000 packets. Doubling the capture period extends the probability of capturing the key to 95 per cent. Processing this data on a standard PC to reveal the key takes as little as three seconds, as explained in a paper by researchers Erik Tews and Ralf-Philipp Weinmann and Andrei Pyshkin of Darmstadt Technical University here. As before, the code breaking approach relies on exploiting cryptographic weaknesses in the RC4 stream cipher used by WEP that have been known about since 2001. The latest attack illustrates the need to use the new WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) standard, which is far more resistant to attack, though infrequently used, even on wireless networks that employ any form of defences http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/04/wireless_code_cracking/ I appreciate a lot of kids wont be able to/want to do this - but there is bound to be one smart one who can. Tom

Fibre converters are the devil. Not very scientific but true. As suggested above trying with converts you know are working is the first step, I have seen dodgy converts a few times and it is very rarely a fibre issue. Tom

Yeah, fair point! I should have said in and out, just use out as shorthand for outside line, both in and out Tom

As Paul says, you need to understand how many concurrent calls you are expecting to make to the outside world. How many people will realistically be using the phone at the same time? In most schools this number is quite low as a lot of calls are internal. Also I'm sure you are aware that ISDN 30 or 2e is just the lines coming into the building, you then need a system to run the phone system - be that PBX or VoIP. I would highly recomend VoIP/IP Telephony if you are going for a new network as you can do all kinds of cool stuff when you combine the two (but I would say that, I sell them) Cheers, Tom

This is what I have two, only under the XDA rebranding of O2. They are actually made by HTC and rebranded by the networks (though I think i-mate might be their own brand now) Windows mobile is handy for the number of apps/email etc. Is dead slow to boot thou and can throw a paddy from time to time Still couldnt live without it thou, far better than a backberry IMHO Tom

techyphil what APs are you using? are they all the same? To have true load balancing you need a back end Controller for the wireless system that can understand what is going on with the wireless network and tell laptops to associate with the most appropriate AP. With Cisco they have something call CCX on the NICs that helps this process. In the case where the laptops are not associating with the closest/most appropriate AP it maybe because there is some channel/signal clash that is causing the signal from the further away AP to be the chosen one? As a temporary fix you could fix which laptops connect to which AP using something like MAC filtering - however this is only really useful if the laptops are regularly used in one place. cheers, Tom

Nokia are coming up with some good stuff in the coming months so I would look in that direction. As Ric says you can use a PDA with a client. This will work but WiFi does kill the battery pretty fast on a PDA/Windows mobile which could be a n issue. I believe the nokias are going to be more suited to the wireless environment. Its still pretty early days on the SIP front but I suspect longer term this will be the best way to go. cheers, Tom

ashok is on the money as far as the Catalyst Express Switches. I have just this week put them into a school where the needed PoE VLANs etc and they fitted the bill and budget nicely. To be completely open and honest I am the Education Account Manager for ONI. We are a Cisco reseller. I'm not here to give the big sell, just try and help and learn. Indeed as Ashok says you ideally want a Gold reseller as they will get the most discount. As well as this you want what Cisco Call a Public Sector Partner for Schools. These are partners who have been approved to deal to schools and so get additional discount. I'm not sure where the 6 week lead time came from. Usually it will take Cisco a few days to confirm you are eligable for discount (up to 5) then the switches can be ordered for next day. The link Ashok gave you should give you some ideas Cheers, Tom

Hi, On wireless AP's the bandwidth is shared which is why you may have a problem with multiple users signing on at the same time. This is a common problem for schools. In many ways schools are the most demanding wireless enviroments as you have many users (up to 30 in a room) all accessing the network at exactly the same time. To be open and honest I am the Education Account Manager for ONI, a Cisco partner so I deal primarly with Cisco and exclusively with Education customers. I am not going to push my opinion on anyone, just hope I can help. With a high quality access point the maximum users you want accessing it are 15 (and this is on a 'business' AP, a more SOHO AP is likely to handle less), so in a typical classroom we will position two access points. This creates further considerations such as the need for inteligent load sharing, ensuring the channels do not clash and that the signals do not overlap. The new N standard is not yet ratified (as far as I am aware) so it maybe a bit early to go there. It is also relatively expensive and will require both new APs and laptops/access cards. I would personally not recomend that yet. Hope that helps, Tom