Search the Community

Hey folks. We're looking at upgrading our wireless solution as we currently have a D-Link system in which has been pretty crappy at times. We have 30AP's at the moment and we're in the middle of looking at different providers for a new system. I just wanted to get some feedback of other local schools as to what has worked and not worked in the last year with Wireless replacements. Link2ICT are offering us a solution which could be managed by them for a small fee. Ruckus looks pretty good so far and certainly at the moment seems like the most appealing choice for me at the moment. And we've also looked at Airtight which is primarily cloud based. We have an AP off them at the moment but have had no luck in getting it connected through Links firewall, even after port changes. Can anybody else recommend any of the above or am I missing a really good solution I haven't checked out yet. (Just seems like everyone of these companies thinks their product is the best, makes it hard to figure out what is BS and what is fact sometimes.)

Hi any one here using Link2ict for Internet. we are looking to move away anyone have any suggestions on a new provide?

I have noticed this morning that I am no longer seeing McAfee ClickProtect links in my e-mails. I know that McAfee are migrating customers away from this product as it is end of life. I am hoping Link2ICT are going to implement an alternative solution as with the rise in Ransomware this extra security is much needed.

Just wondered what are people's thoughts about renewing the Facility CMIS licence, seems Link2ICT cannot offer a renewal and Advanced Learning are not in a position to offer direct yet. Has anyone else heard anything please?

Most Birmingham schools have probably seen this already. For those that haven't........ "Virgin Media have advised us that with effect from 20 June, they will be increasing the price of their Centrex telephony lines from £5 per month to £9.50 per month. There is no justification for this price increase and despite many years of customer loyalty, Virgin Media are unwilling to negotiate to improve this offer. To counter this unwelcome news, Link2ICT are now accelerating deployment of a fully cloud based VoIP telephony solution which will provide schools with a far cheaper alternative that includes all call charges. This will be available during the autumn term." We don't subscribe to Link2ICT's services but do have their Virgin phone lines (non VOIP). So for us, line rental has doubled. Anyone mind posting what you're paying for your VOIP service, and how much bandwidth its using up. I'm reading its around 1mbps per 10 concurrent calls. Doubtful that its worth it for us as we've got less than 20 phone lines. We do however have a 50mbps leased line which is plenty.

Hey folks, I hope somebody can give me some advice on this. We're basically upgrading all our old 100mb switches from 2008 to 1GB switches in the next couple weeks. We've chosen HP out of the possible hardware vendors as they have a pretty good lifetime warranty, the price is pretty good and the functionality of each seems worth the cost. However, after consulting with Link2ICT, they've basically said that we can't move away from Cisco for our main switches that connect to their end. Apparently according to them the HP switches we are buying will not talk to their Cisco network and thus we must go for Cisco and Cisco only. We're spending about £6,000 on a complete refresh on our switches, a total of 11 switches, and just one of the proposed cisco alternatives is £3-4,000. We may need three of these. Is this true that Cisco switches can only communicate in this manner with other Cisco switches? As to me, an amateur in switching technology and advanced networking, this seems like BS and a total rip off. Any help would be grateful. Cheers, Alex

Ladies and Gentlemen of the edugeek world (of which I am a proud member). This thread will apply more for Birmingham and West Midlands members more than others, but all are welcome to use this forum to express an opinion. Education and IT Ltd is a tech support company that specialise in IT in schools, because thats were our experience is. This company is now a target for Link2ICT (Birmingham LEA backed IT company!!!!) to take pot shots at. This was evident with an ebreifing sent out on the 6th of Feb. Despite other companies working in schools as well as Education and IT Ltd, we have been singled out for this attack...but you cant buy better publicity than that...the competition letting its clients know that there is an alternate provider...LOL!!! This thread I hope will help realise that in a free market economy, Education and IT Ltd havent done wrong except setup in competition with a company that until recently had no competition. Enjoy!

Hello Edugeek! Has anyone had any experience with Link 2 ICT changing for password resets for CRISP? I've been in touch with our account manager at Link 2 ICT and from our conversation it sounds like this is something that BCC have sanctioned. Feels rather difficult to justify this if BCC also insist that school use CRISP. The school in question don't have a BGFL connection or pay for UAG as they have previously just walked the 40 metres to the school next door that still has a BGFL connection. More than happy to have my assumptions corrected here, but interested if anyone has managed to speak to BCC about this? Many thanks!

Just giving you all a heads up for those on the BGFL EES agreement all 7000 activation keys have been used up! I've logged a call with LInk2ICT, when you try activating your windows 7 get an error code 0xC004C020 "The activation server reported that the Multiple Activation Key has exceeded its limit." Steve

Has anyone else noticed that the amazing new Office 365 Groups feature is disabled by Link2ICT. This feature is really usefull and Microsft are putting most of their new development effort into sharing everything using this method over older legacy exchange type sharing methods which have so many permutation of what you can do or not with different types of group. Shared mailbox/Distribution list (also called distribution group)/Site mailbox/Public folder. For example oyu cannot share a calendar with a dynamic distribution list. IDaaS/BGfL365 uses a dynamic distribution list to create the staff@school group. Sharepoint calendars are not supported by mobile. Whereas groups is supported by everything and has it's own mobile app. https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/outlook-groups/id1027125154?mt=8 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft.outlookgroups&hl=en_GB https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/Email-collaboration-in-Office-365-eb3e840f-ed60-4461-81f5-12381c132b89 Lik2ICT have disabled it until they have the resources to analyse how it works and what the implications are for privacy between schools etc. Could other users open call with Link2ICT requesting this so they can prioritise enabling it again. https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/Learn-about-Office-365-groups-b565caa1-5c40-40ef-9915-60fdb2d97fa2?ui=en-US&rs=en-GB&ad=GB