Gibson335

I can only speak for us: we became an Academy on 31 July last year, and had to have a new contract directly with EMBC from 1 August. We could have chosen to leave EMBC, but would have assumed some financial committment depending on notice given.

Schools Broadband/Talk Straight look like a decent option, but for us they are a little bit more expensive than we're expecting to pay for our Capita/KCOM solution, as we don't require the hosting or student mail. I would have liked a better breakdown of costs from them, but at least have a straight comms/service package split. I can see why they would be of interest to many, and may yet be for us if the KCOM prices don't end up being what we expect them to be.

Yes it's hard without clear guidance. It involves a lot of guess work otherwise, though we are currently in the middle of an infrastructure upgrade and will hopefully be able to cope with anything that comes our way. We only have some minor wi-fi areas at the moment and I've been planning towards the inevitability of that spreading and the implementation of BYOD - albeit in a limited way. Two years of budget priorities going elsewhere has stunted our development somewhat, but I hope to be back on track after next summer.

I got the impression the contact info KCOM had was ancient. I also had to request putting my own address on their mailing system, and fortunately for me that happened.

CyberNerd: My comments were tongue-in-cheek. I'm not a fan of the 'box-ticking' language they use, but I envy you the direction you've been handed here. You mention infrastructure: will you go for Gig to AP when looking at your wi-fi? Some significant spending to do there, but it's nice if they're willing to back up the statements with budget.

Woh...a whole lot of eduspeak there. Anytime, anywhere...hmm, now where have I heard that before?

Fell asleep half way through ;-)

The main thing about any such 'vision' is that you need to know where they want to go in order for you to help them get there. If you're lucky they'll have an extensive 3-5 year plan, if not it's a bit difficult to visualise support requirements when you may not know what you'll need to support.

Continuity, at least in my view, is worth a premium, but from what you're saying they've not managed to get their prices down where you are in the way they've managed to for us, so those additional costs are probably impossible to justify. As you say, shame for those who'd rather stay but are being forced out on costs.

We're in south Leics, so I'd guess the price difference is partially down to the exchanges. I'm hopeful now that the other schools will look at this seriously given that price, but of course it also depends on whether they go for the Capita/KCOM package or the KCOM/RM package as to where their overall costs end up. It's a palaver, but then Broadband has become such a significant part of the school needs, it requires a lot of close attention.

Secondary. Our 100mbps connection price from KCOM has come in at under £9,500 - provided the relevant schools sign up. I have to be honest in admitting that if all other things are equal, I'm in favour of maintaining the status quo - sometimes better the devil you know, and I'd rather not go through a change in ISP every 3-4 years, either. I guess we each have our different priorities.

Had to laugh - the contact at KCOM is off until next week. He timed his holiday just right :-)

Just shows...for us they would be more expensive than the Capita/KCOM solution, and even if they were close or slightly better, the notion of a smoother transition and less disruption is something worth paying a slight premium for - for us anyway.

Surprising. The one we have, again 'if the following schools sign up' was pretty competitive.

We used to provide laptops to staff on a three year cycle. That was just about right, but obviously a strain on finances. Recent budgetary issues meant that SLT changed this to replacing them only when they were damaged beyond economical repair. Less than two years on and that is starting to catch up on us in several ways. I don't want increasingly older and slower machines on the network, so I'd rather go back to replacing them regularly or putting desktops in classrooms. However, I have to be realistic and accept that finances can't always be found or, indeed, spent wisely. Problem is, people expect a 5 year old laptop to work as well as it did out of the box. Well, 1Gb RAM was fine back then, but not much use now.

Can anyone point me to issues related to the DPA and OMA? Just wondering where phone access to Outlook is covered should the phone be stolen? Thanks.

I'm on the cadge - interested in looking at educational BYOD policies, either your own if you have them in use or if you know any good links. Thanks in advance.

You may not mean it to but this comes across as justifying for the sake of it. Why compare it to other things such as VLE - I've contacted 8 companies so far about ISP and Capita are the only ones to have a per user price. It's other ISP services we should be comparing it to, surely? As for your comment in another post - 'you could just ask Capita - that's all very well providing you can get a complete answer - I got no answer to my e-mail request and a subsequent call made it clear about setting the figure for the year, but when I asked what happened if you went for a 3 year contract I got told they'd have to check and would get back...though I'm still waiting. As for the setup costs, I agree with synaesthesia in that if it's different enough to warrant setup costs it should not be suggested that it's pretty much the same facilty in all but name. I think sometimes you try to make a case for things being much simpler than they actually are, especially for those schools who have little or no on-site expertise or even someone who can spare the time to do all this. I do have the time - it's my job - but if I find the process frustrating and a little opaque at times, then I can only imagine how some people are finding it.

Crucially, though, we could have 1500 users at the start of the contract and plus or minus 50 by the end of that term...so presumably they go by how many users you have at the renogotiation of the contract? Again, this could be made much clearer.

I tried asking the same question, because initially their section on the site suggested a potential site fee rather than per user. I asked because both our staff and student numbers change from term to term, year to year, so I questioned what figure constituted 'per user' and got no direct response...so I too would like to know how what figure to use.

It's setup plus annual, but they haven't made it easy, because you get discounts the longer the contract, and they were initially suggesting discounts the more services you had, but not sure if that's still the deal. They have 'telesales' people to answer queries, and we all love telesales people don't we? I've asked for a straight quote for what I need for the length of time I want it, but it hasn't come back to me yet so will have to do some nudging.

I would assume it does require a migration of sorts to a new system or new location within the system, but I still think it would help their cause to waive these charges.

Well the KCOM package has its services from RM - KCOM are responsible for the connection. Regards Capita, it might be in their best interests to forego the setup costs for existing EMBC customers, but I can't see that happening.

This is correct, of course. I, like many people, will have already looked at various non-emPSN options and will have their quote firmly in the back pocket to fall back on. So whilst I would agree that there's no immediate rush if you're happy to wait for an October changeover, there is slightly more urgency if you want to make those changes in July or August, especially with a 90 day lead-in. Putting options and recommendations to immediate line managers, to have that then discussed and agreed by SLT, and then finally ratified by Governors, all takes time as we all know. I think, also, in the back of people's minds the delays spread a little bit of doubt about how prepared the providers will be to make potentially a vast number of transitions at the same time.

Yes, I had a whole conversation with them once about the Internet being slow on my Etch-A-Sketch.