SchoolsBroadband

if you're a standard secondary school using a 100Mbit leased line then the RRP for a Fortigate 100D with 1 year of UTM bundle and Forticare then the price is £2,845. +VAT However we can apply a decent discount to that. However we also have carrier grade hosted Fortigate firewalls we virtualise. So if you wanted to move your Internet connection and take a hosted firewall from us that has no one off costs then we can do a bundle which comes out very cost effect. Send me a PM if its of interest. Thanks Dave

you could also change your hosts file to test it works quickly

I'm afraid I haven't used the layer 7 app control on a Smoothwall UTM. My answer is also likely to be slightly biased as we are a Fortinet house. However we are a Fortinet house for a reason. I do believe they are the best and most powerful UTM devices on the market and you get the most "bang for your buck" than with any other vendor. If we didn't then we wouldn't use them. App control and many functions are delivered using the ASIC processors which specifically speed up these type of functions instead of going through a standard x86 CPU. This means they can go very fast and intensive packet inspection which is great when doing things like layer 7 app control and inline anti-virus scanning which in my opinion all businesses and schools should have to help keep out "internet nasties". Fortinet have been doing layer 7 app control for years and its built into the core of the product. it's not just a Linux box with a bespoke kernel and bits bolted on. If you'd like me to spec you one up or take a trial one do send me a PM. Thanks Dave

Personally I'd highly recommend Fortinet with V5 FortiOS on it. Great layer 7 app control and so easy to use. If you want a quote or just one specing up then do let me know. Thanks Dave

PM'd

Hi Chris, look no further than Lightspeed or Smoothwall. Both will do what you want and are great products. We offer Lightspeed & Fortinet as standard with no need for additional onsite hardware with all of our School Internet products. Many schools / users on Edugeek already use us and its easy to move ISP so just ask about if you need any reference sites or let me know and I'll send you some. If not good luck getting to work what you need. Thanks Dave

If you are wanting to do some static IP -> mac binding then doing firewalls rules on that then look no further than a DrayTek Vigor 2860 which has an integrated VDSL modem so you can ditch the BT one if required. THanks Dave

ah we sent a guide out on this a while ago to all schools when google stopped supporting the no ssl option correctly. You basically need to send https traffic destined to google to the lightspeed proxy so it can do the man in the middle attack to then filter within google (including sub sites which you can put in the URL filter). If you can PM me your email address i'll dig out the guide and send it to you. This I believe will fix the issue for google. I'm unsure on bing off hand. Thanks Dave

Hi @snagrat, do you have a ticket open with us? if so can you PM it to me and I'll check it out for you? Also are you using our HTTPS proxy / man in the middle option for google as this will allow Lightspeed to put the big blue X on images it deems to be in appropriate even after google safe search has been enforced. Thanks Dave

Yes its also the Fortiweb product which is completely different to Fortigate

Afternoon all, we've got a special offer on 1Gbit leased lines with the full 1Gbit of Internet bandwidth. Only £10,500pa with a free install on all 3 year terms inc router. Service is delivered over a BT fibre based line. Price doesn't include any filtering or security services but we can quote if you need them. This is available to about 70% of London at the moment. If you'd like to know if you can get it then just send me a PM with your postcode and I'll check. Cheers Dave

Not good for them then. I don't sell Talk Talk DSL so can't comment on if they had lots of problems bar what I've seen on the Talk Talk outage page. Ta Dave

Everything, but only in certain areas. Presume you don't have any customers in certain places or any with Talk Talk wholesale as I know a lot of ISPs were affected

yes it all depends what you use the Internet for. We have some primary schools that average just over 1Mbit but then we have others that are over 20Mbit. Are you able to get any bandwidth stats out of your current provider? This will give you an idea of what you're really using. Oh and if you want me to beat Virgin Media's price just let me know @bsb Thanks Dave

and as if by magic.... Ofcom Start Major UK Strategic Review of all things Broadband and Telecoms - ISPreview UK

We're starting to see some circuits come back but then go down again. Looks like they've nearly fixed it

Morning all, I've seen a few threads ref Internet outages today regarding numerous ISP's. Just to let you know Talk Talk Wholesale have had a major outage affecting lots of ISP's and direct customers due to a fibre issue with one of their wholesale providers Zayo Group (formerly Geo Networks). It's not affecting their whole network but we're seeing numerous circuits affected. If you've got a backup DSL or FTTC with us though fear not as this uses BT Wholesale so is completely separate and we can confirm are working. See Network status | TalkTalk Business Thanks Dave

Talk Talk wholesale have a huge outage due to a Zayo fibre issue. This is affecting over 30,000 connections this morning. Both we and SWGFL use them and are experiencing issues. However if you have auto DSL / FTTC failover then you'll still be up as that uses BT and not Talk Talk.

If you need any advice on moving or want to speak to our many hundreds of customers using our broadband & filtering service so do send me a PM. We've a lot of customers on Edugeek who say nice things about us FTTC and EoFTTC have already vastly improved the majority of schools Internet connections for a fraction of the price of BT full fibre circuits. Watch out for G.FAST which is going to start to be rolled out in 18 months time which will increase speeds even more. Thanks Dave

Yes £47.99pm for broadband including a full safety suite and all the safety guards of what a proper educational ISP can offer would be a bit of a bargain! Although I doubt very much it's all in for that As per Mark's comments too we have over a thousand schools using our specialist connectivity and filtering services with people who fully understand what schools need so if you need an alternative look no further and feel free to send me a PM Other than that good luck! Dave

you could snmp monitor each switch port on your network or put a router inbetween your LAN and SWGFL connection. Something like a Draytek has a function called Data Flow monitor that allows you to see which client is eating up all of your bandwidth and then apply QOS to them if required. Thanks Dave

sure is. Just sent us your details as requested and we'll send you a nice router

I've met the owner Ian Fishwick a few times at various telecoms events. He's quite a shrewd businessman I don't think they are an ISP themselves and they re-sell someone else's services although I may be wrong. No idea on their content filtering and firewall solution either. Sorry I can't help more than that. Thanks Dave

@dhm83 please remember that FTTC does not give guaranteed speeds. EoFTTC and full fibre leased lines do but not standard FTTC which is why some ISP's and some of our competitors offer. I'll send you a PM Dave

Hi all, just 6 weeks to go on this special offer! One its gone, its gone Dave