Wave9_Lee

For info, we offer Network as a Service for this very reason - no or low upfront cost, pay for a supported service over 5 or 7 years. Includes, survey, design, installation, hardware, licencing and support. Let me know if this is of interest

It can be worth double checking external coverage - we deploy IP65 weatherproof 5G routers for this reason - can be situated on the wall facing the nearest mast to improve reception.

Appreciate you're looking for community responses and recommendations, but I'd be happy to offer some options/info and pricing. We support over 900 schools with these types of services with an NPS score of 96 (ie nearly 100% of our customers would recommend us).

We're very pro on-prem at Wave 9 for maximum flexibiity and control - Happy to add Sophos into the mix - I can provide some pricing/demo etc as required anytime, thanks

ahh sorry - late to the party as usual...

Hi try; Create a temporary firewall rule for your test machine IP address and attach a web policy to it Are you using the web proxy, or the DPI engine? Try the opposite to whatever you're using (tick 'Use Web Proxy instead of DPI engine', or untick it, under the Web Filtering part of your firewall rule). Ensure that jackets.dmmserver.com is being allowed and not blocked erroneously Could be a rogue cdn or somesuch. we had it with a couple of customers, but now works (without us doing anything) and works on our work test machines etc..

Ping me a note if you need any schools quoting, cheers

I hear that Entrust are now charging more for CIXA as part of their pacakge in Birmingham - if any schools require an alternative option before September, we can offer CIXA at very attractive prices. DM or reach out directly anytime.

Happy to quote and provide info anytime. My contact details in my signature.

You can do it with a custom category then add it to the web policy you can also unblock specific channels while keeping Youtube itself blocked, but requires a bit more legwork...

Wired or wireless? Have you taken a machine in that's working normally elsewhere (and vise versa)

What are you trying to achieve exactly? The requirement determines the solution. For instance, Openreach EAD P2P could be around £3500-4500 per annum at 1Gbps and £7500-8500 at 10Gbps subject to postcodes/exchange and installation charges etc. If both sites are mostly independent of each other apart from a select number of services then you might use VPN/SDWAN over 2 internet links as each site would have their own internet access. i.e 2 schools with their own internet needs, but centrally hosted voice/AD/content etc. Need to understand your bandwidth, resilience, latency requirements. Happy to chat through anytime..

Fair point about budgets, but the second line doesn't need to be too expensive. We provision the backup line as active, so it can be used alongside the main connection, meaning it's not dead money at least. We also filter on-premise, so no issue with the second point. Appreciate that other services can differ..

You can buy what's called RO2 for leased lines, which guarantee physically separate ducts and fibre, different routes into the school, and utilise 2 different exchnages, but it's usually quite expensive. You have to weigh up the risk/cost. What is the plan for 1/4/8 hour downtime, or several days? Taking 2 separate products/technologies would help - i.e Openreach leased line + SOGEA, same exchange, but likely different routes/ducts back to the exchange. Use 2 different ISPs for additional resilience. If you can get VMB+Openreach = good. If an Alt-net is available, that can help. 5G is becoming more effective as a backup as it's not reliant on local duct or fibre at all. The other point stands tho, if it all ends up in the same infrastructure/datacentre, you're reliant on the supplier having very robust failover within their service platform.

Hi Keith, Appreciate you're waiting for community replies rather than suppliers, but if you would like a comparative quote from us at Wave 9 or any futher info/demo, let me know, be happy to oblige. We offer DIA from a large range of providers and primarily utilise Sophos for firewall/filtering/security. cheers

£4k is too much for a compliant FttC/EoFttC/FttP service. Happy to provide a comparison if you'd like, cheers

Large secondaries, we see between 3-5GB per day, subject to what's logged, qty of devices etc. You'd ideally want to keep a years worth. If using Fastvu, you would use your own VM, so no restriction really..

This is pretty much what we recommend (except we use Sophos XGS). Lots of flexibility, cost effective, highly resilient. We use alternate ISP & technoloy where possible for the backup connections but manage it all under one SLA. For added resilience a second appliance can be added at each site for failover (only one licence cost) but they're pretty bullet proof and we offer a 6 hour on-site configured replacement anyway.

Lightspeed Alert will not alert when a user searches Porn, that’s the job of Lightspeed Filter to block it and Lightspeed Flagged Terms to report it. Lightspeed Alert is in place to report on safeguarding concerns relating to self-harm, cyberbullying, school violence, explicit content and drugs. cheers

Bumping!

Your allowance is 20k per tax year currently, so you can rollup overtime to a large amount. So if you haven't already, you can invest £20k before 5th April and another after the 6th of April (that would be your limit until April 2025) If you're lucky enough to get to £85k in one ISA you might want to add a different ISA for future funds to make sure your money is protected by the fscs. Check that the ISA you choose doesn't penalise transfers, as once the fixed rate ends, the new rate may be unattractive.. https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/isa-guide-savings-without-tax/

We can offer Cityfibre, but you need to bear in mind that it's only available in selected areas and that to offer the cheapest price, they will need to connect you directly to their fibre meaning some civils work. That could be minimal or not, depending on your specific site. It can usually mean longer lead times.

No problem, if you drop me an email or PM with your details, I'll get something out to you straight away. If the price looks ok, can arrange a demo or references as needed, cheers

Replacement for broadband/filtering/firewall or CC4 etc?

Appreciate you're looking for peer recommendations, but I'd be happy to arrange a demo/trial of our services if it's of interest. Our approach is slightly different than some others, happy to discuss the pros and cons. cheers