Wave9_Lee

[i believe you'll need fixed IP on the 4G for voip to work properly. Also can be challenges around VPN and hosted services etc. We offer fixed IP SIM for this reason, but it's more expensive.]

Apologies for sticking my uninvited oar in. For large secondary schools I would definiteley consider some other solutions, specifically on-site, managed by you, so that you have full visibility of what's going on in your network and can cater for a much more complex environment than a primary school etc. Our experience is that this also allows much more flexibilty around BYOD, VLAN based policies, different devices/users, integrated security and such things as remote access, SDWAN and application control. Just my 2p - happy to provide some more info or pricing if you'd be interested anytime. cheers

I believe you'll need fixed IP on the 4G for voip to work properly. Also can be challenges around VPN and hosted services etc. We offer fixed IP SIM for this reason, but it's more expensive. Obviously, if both your primary and secondary connections terminate in the same supplier kit in their datacentre, then both could be affected by an outage there. For resilience I would always look for different telco/ISP, different technology where possible. That's why we operate the model we do.

I believe they are approaching this in geographical phases, I guess to manage the workload, so it could be quite a while to get to some areas.

We haven't seen any issues like this across 500 sites or so. Have you checked that times are out of synhc on the client?

We'd be happy to provide some info/quotes/references as needed. We work mostly with Cisco Meraki for networking (although also Sophos increasingly). we can provide a design, install, support package as needed, offer optional cabling services and can spread your costs across a contract term if needed. Cisco Meraki offer a 10 year support as standard in education. Drop me a PM or contact me using the details below any time. cheers

I guess the key difference from 3cx etc and a managed service, are having to manage/update/fix your hosting/server/patches, troubleshooting and call routing yourself vs having it all looked after to an SLA. So although costs might be higher, your own overhead and risk is lower. We include all changes within our charges, soft clients, Teams integration, etc. We think the pricing is pretty good, even for large deployments. One other benefit is that we can offer QoS if using our broadband, so you have an SLA on call quality. Happy to provide a quote for the system, or just SIP trunks if needed, anytime. cheers

the most common typos I make; complaint/compliant and netwrok... every time.. I'll get Matt to drop you a line Steve

hold that thought, there's a significant chance I'm an idiot.

The next phase of CTC is approved and due to be formally announced. £150M investment in 55 education investment areas. 3 tranches. approx numbers - 800 schools 22/23, 2,000 schools 23/24, 800 schools 24/25. The mathematicians amongst you will work out that's an average of £42k per school. As stated before, if you're eligible, you'll be sent an invite. I believe eligibility is focussed on OFSTED status (needs improvement etc) and current LAN condition (i.e EOL, on it's knees) - waiting to hear more about this. If anyone needs assistance with quoting, understanding the process, applying etc, then please get in touch. We have complaint procurement routes to make the whole process simple and fast. Stocks are still an issue for everyone, but hopefully getting better nearer Q4. We have a call with DFE in the next week or two and I know there are some cusomer webinars coming up, I'll post here when I get the info.

Hi Jaan If I'm reading it right, just needs a firewall rule with the mac address that you want to bypass the hotspot above that rule - I'll post a screenshot a bit later. might help

Hi Jaan If you'd like a quote, just let me know - drop me a mail or call anytime Kind regards Lee

The spec is developing and is expected to be compliant (and like you say, the standards/budget mix will always be a challenge!). The licence costs are pretty low, and we can wrap these into our managed service fairly painlessly. Will be interesting to see the spec and pricing in the next few months

Core switching and Wifi 6 are due this year. Specs TBC, but regardless can use L3 on the XGS for most uses in a school LAN. I don't think they'll be challenging Cisco Enterprise Switching etc, but will suit many school environments and budgets. The single dashboard and end to end security will improve efficiency and support. If any one would like to get involved in any Pilot/Trials, please get in touch, we're currently putting together managed bundle offers and service wrap.

Also bear in mind that Connect the Classroom phase 2 announcement soon, so if you're in one of the educational investment regions, might want to hold off investing. You may qualify for a free LAN...

Our Wholesale partners have multiple methods of DDoS protection and the Sophos Firewalls we offer also include protection - however there is no single answer. Ability to mitigate is impacted by the amount of traffic, your upstream peers, bandwidth etc. Even with core 'appliances' if the upstream transit provider (which everyone uses) is sending your ISP the malicious traffic in enough quantity, it will be a problem. In addition in automated protection, there's the risk of valid traffic being dropped. We've found the best mitigation is the simplest - multiple IP addresses and active/active internet connections through 2 separate ISPs. In our experience most attacks are against RBC/ISP where a limited number of IP addresses are used for many many subscribers, and a lot of providers architect their networks this way (so you are almost a LAN extension, rather than having a true internet IP address). This gives malicious actors more bang for their buck. We rarely see DoS/DDoS attacks against our customers for this reason, perhaps 2/3 a year (compared to hundreds when running RBCs). Where attacks do get through, we can usually identify the perpatrator (usually disgruntled pupil) as we manage the firewalls for most of our customers networks. The new DFE guidelines state that a second connection is preferred, and as we provide the second link to a totally different network, this is very effective. I'd be happy to provide a quote anytime, cheers

Hi Dave, I Appreciate you are looking for a community response rather than providers, but if you'd like a quote and info from us, I can turn that around for you today. If you search Wave 9 on the forum, you will hopefully see we have a good reputation.. Drop me a mail anytime and I'll put something together for you. cheers

Yes, EAD (the underlying Openreach product)is full duplex. https://www.openreach.co.uk/cpportal/content/dam/cpportal/public/images-and-documents/home/help-and-support/sins/documents/SIN_492.pdf the kit in the exchange and upstream should be full duplex too.

This is an interesting area with a number of ways to solve it. If you're hosting services on site that need this, there is often ways of adding in alternate IP addresses as fallback, or perhaps using Dynamic DNS. In terms of resilience, I feel it's good to have alternate IP addresses, with different ISPs. Protects against ISP failure (which would take out your single IP address possibly) and also provides good protection for DDoS. There are no right and wrong ways, just depends on your current environment and approach to risk (plus cost of course, as always)

Hi Kieran We can provide you with a backup line through a different provider - this is our default offer. We provide direct internet access for all of our customers for this reason, rather than terminating all customer connections into the same datacentre. If you take a leased line and an fttc/p service, they will use different routes/ducts, terminate in different locations locally, and logically will route through different ISPs. By going with us you will have the same support arrangements and a single bill. If you’re taking our managed firewall option, then we load balance the two connections as active-active so you get the use of both lines in normal use. (As well as the comfort of knowing your backup is actually live - you’d be surprised how often some providers don’t test/monitor). If at some point you were to say, run voip over the backup line, you would have resilience both ways - and simplicity when it comes to troubleshooting. You’re obviously free to choose a different provider altogether, but there genuinely isn’t any benefit.

The DFE will send you an invitation letter - probably to the SBM/head etc. Perhaps ask them to look out for it and check spam etc.

I guess that it would make sense for schools that have significant requirements in this area (who qualify for the CTC funding) to get some cabling quotes alongside the project from their CTC supplier and pay the balance themselves? This should be more cost effective as your survey, project management costs etc are (kind of) subsumed and if the contractor is already going to be on site, the 'per port' costs should be optimised..

Yep, here you go; https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/education-investment-areas-selection-methodology HM Government has announced it will further drive school improvement in England by delivering a package of measures in new Education Investment Areas (EIAs). These areas cover the third of local authorities in England where educational outcomes are currently weakest and other local authorities containing existing place-based interventions. In DFE text, these areas are directly linked to the Gbps/fibre Connectivity funding for fttp, but I would think that these areas are also the basis for the CTC programme, as they are clearly focussing on these areas over the next 3 years. https://schoolsweek.co.uk/dfe-pledges-150m-to-get-high-speed-internet-to-all-schools-by-2025/ The selection process of investment areas is based on performance/outcomes etc, so focussing on these areas are likely to get better bang for their buck. Also seems to be focussed on Primary (KS2 & 4). /Obligatory plug Needless to say Wave 9 can help with these projects and have delivered many over the last 6 months with great feedback. We're exclusively Cisco Meraki (10 yr licence/support) and have compliant direct award framework options for speed and simplicity. /plug over

I guess their view is they're focussed on wireless primarily in terms of end-user access. Moving to as few devices as possible on physical ports is the direction. I guess in most schools this would be admin desktops wired but vast majority of users moving to wireless. So no point in refreshing what will be defunct or at least massivley under utilised. Not that you would think that with some of the new build spec that is out there with flood wiring everywhere..!

Think this is broadly it; Connect The Classroom funding for around 3500 schools, focussed in 55 Local Authority Education Investement Areas where school outcomes are weakest. Approximately £150M has been allocated to invest in modern, high spec Wireless and LAN infrastructure over the next 3 years. The 55 ‘education investment areas’ Bedford Blackpool Bolton Bradford Bury Cambridgeshire Central Bedfordshire Cornwall County Durham Coventry Darlington Derby Derbyshire Doncaster Dorset Dudley East Sussex Halton Hartlepool Isle of Wight Kirklees Knowsley Leeds Lincolnshire Liverpool Luton Manchester Middlesbrough Norfolk North Northamptonshire North Somerset North Yorkshire Nottingham Nottinghamshire Oldham Peterborough Plymouth Portsmouth Rochdale Rotherham Salford Sandwell Sefton Somerset South Gloucestershire South Tyneside St Helens Stoke-on-Trent Suffolk Sunderland Swindon Tameside Wakefield Walsall Wirral