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I am looking at replacing our ADSL connection with something rather faster. FTTC is looking very tempting, but I was wondering if there was good reason for me to be pushing for more expensive solutions like Ethernet First Mile. We're a small primary with 60 simultaneous users at the very most. We are also close to an exchange - promised speeds of 60.7Mbps download on FTTC speed checkers. Do I need to be concerned about contention with an FTTC package? I have not been able to find any figures for FTTC contention ratios - it would be nice to know how this varied between different packages and providers.

Hi all, I am looking for some suggestions on backup broadband connections for a couple of my schools that rely heavily on cloud services, such as Google workspace, Arbor, etc. I though about 5G but as we are located in Cornwall, it is pretty much pointless. Both schools main broadband lines are with SWGfL but I am not sure if they offer any redundancy options? Does anyone else mind sharing if they have a back up line, FTTC, FTTP? It doesn't need to be great, just something that could keep them going for essential work. TIA.

Hello everyone, we're looking to trial a new GEA-FTTC product from one of our carrier partners and I'm looking for any schools interested in testing this for you and having the service at cost for 1 year as well as us paying the installation. You can have this with or without our content filtering / security service. So a little on the technology GEA (Generic Ethernet Access) FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet) This is a new wholesale version of traditional FTTC (also known as BT Infinity). It works by using high speed fibre to the BT green street cabinet, then copper from the cabinet to your school. Unlike normal FTTC, GEA-FTTC uses BT's National Ethernet network and not the normal shared 21CN broadband network. Therefore a 1:1 contention ratio can be supplied giving leased line performance. Speed available still depends on how far away the school is from the street cabinet and this gets slower the further away you are. The specific product we are trialing guarantees a same speed upload / download of up to 20Mbit (depending on actual speed available on the line) but you can burst up to the maximum sync speed if spare capacity on the network is available. Therefore the offering is quite unique giving a minimum guaranteed speed but the availability to go faster as and when required. As part of the install we will send an engineer to site, install a fully managed Cisco router and we'll help integrate it into your existing network. We'll also let you know what speed to expect. Costs will be sub £2k for an Internet only variation which when compared to a 20Mbit full fibre leased line costing in the region of £5k - £6kpa is a bit of a bargain. No phone line needs to be installed as this is included in the installation charge we pay. Please note this service is only available where FTTC exists at your current exchange and street cabinet. I'm away on holiday until Monday 22nd April so it's best to get in touch via our website on Schools Broadband | Welcome . If you get in touch with me via PM I'll get in touch as soon as I'm back. if you've any questions for the general forum please post them here and I'll get one of my support chaps to answer as best we can. Thanks Dave