A new internet connection for your school

Primary and Special Schools

Timeline for a new Internet Connection

Adopting a new connection can appear to be frightening but if you keep to it the process simple then it will run in the same way as any contract negotiation.

The first thing you should consider is what are you trying to achieve.

Once you have established this vision it gives you the power to ask questions.

  1. Have an initial conversation with trusted colleagues (including eLIM) over what you are trying to achieve. Write down your ideas and place them in order of importance
  2. Find the end date for your current provision. The whole process can take between 6 to 8 months so you need to give yourself plenty of time.
  3. Consider if you want to work with a group of schools to look at saving costs
  4. Contact suppliers and gets quotes
  5. With trusted colleagues (including eLIM) examine the quotes and decide on the supplier
  6. Confirm contract and start purchase process
  7. A site visit from the supplier should confirm an install date and highlight issues
  8. Inform school IT support of the intended change date
  9. Gather all the information about your connection (Firewalls and the Whitelisting of sites) to inform supplier
  10. Inform eLIM of cessation date of current connection (90 days’ notice must be given). Always have a month overlap to ensure continuity
  11. Keep eLIM involved if there are issues

If you feel that you do not have the time to consider all the possibilities, then get in contact with eLIM who will help lead you through the process.

Questions you should ask

More details on the next pages / Notes
Can my school get superfast broadband?
What are the predicted speeds?
Is this acceptable?
Is the connection shared (contended) with others? Do I get the full connection speed?
How much money do I have to spend?
Who could supply the connection?
Do I want to work with other schools?
Who can I contact?
What are the Security and Safety Measures?
Security
How is the connection protected against attacks (e.g. DDOS – denial of service)
Who makes the changes to settings?
Filtering
Is there policy group or user based filtering?
Does the company provide a solution that meets with the new advice?
Monitoring
Does the company provide a solution that meets the new advice?
What is the support for mobile devices?
Are there new opportunities?
Who gives best value for money?

Questions you should ask

1 Can my school get superfast broadband?

Visit this link:

If not, then you might need to consider the alternatives below

The main question you should ask is:

  • Is my connection large enough at the moment? (at the moment Primary/Special Schools 10Mbps)
  • Do I need more bandwidth?

Not all the ways of connecting a school are available in all areas.

Download / Upload / Advantages / Suitable for / Notes
ADSL (Phone line) / 8Mbps / 812Kbps / Low cost
Widely available / Small Primary / Delivered over a standard phone line
Fibre (Superfast broadband) / 80Mbps / 20Mbps / Uncontended and guaranteed up to 20Mbps / Medium Primary / Speeds can vary
Bonded lines (2 or more phone lines) / 58Mbps / 3.5Mbps / Access to faster bandwidth in low bandwidth areas / Medium Primary / Several phone lines ‘glued’ together
Leased line (usually Fibre) / 10Mbps to 1Gbps / Symmetric, depends on how much is traffic is being downloaded / Fast, dedicated service / Large primary and secondary / Expensive The greater the speed the more you pay
Satellite/Radio / 10Mbps / 2Mbps / Better connectivity in remote areas / Rural, Small Primary

For the majority of Primary schools, Superfast Broadband would be the preferred option. However, the speed can vary and even an 80Mbps line can deteriorate according to the distance from the exchange.

Where there is no broadband or the speed is quite slow then you should consider either an ADSL line or a line where telephone lines are combined together (these are called bonded lines). These types of connections should not be considered to be inferior to superfast broadband – it is the delivery speed that is the important. In some extreme cases it might be better to consider a satellite or radio link.

Where superfast broadband or other solutions do not provide enough bandwidth then the school could consider an individual fibre line called a leased line. These can be expensive but can supply large bandwidths.

2 What are the predicted speeds?

You do need to check the predicted speed of the line:

Enter your phone number or if this does not work click on the Address Checker Link and enter your postcode and then choose the address.

VDSL refers to Superfast Broadband.

You need to check the Downstream Speed but of equal importance is the upstream speed – this needs to be around 10Mbps although lower speeds are acceptable.

If you are looking at an ADSL line, then lower speeds are acceptable.

In each case you should ask the question if the connection is shared with others – Is the link contended? What you are looking for is the answer no, and that you get the full speed quoted.

2 How much money do I have to spend?

You should find out how much money has been allocated for your broadband budget last year. This will give you a base level. Because of the way in which the monies were allocated by county they do not bear any relation to the true cost for your school or the cost of using a different technology. If there are extra costs for an equivalent connection, then the county will support this for the duration of the existing WAN contract.

3 Who could supply the connection?

Don’t just get one quote! They vary by several hundreds of pounds so over a three year contract you could save a thousand pounds.

You might like to consider working with a group of other schools to cut the amount of work and see if there are any other savings that could be made.

Contacts are:

Schools

eLIM will help you by contacting these people for you and coordinating the quote process.

4 What are the Security and Safety Measures?

Security - The security of the connection is usually associated with settings on the network equipment normally called Firewalls and Intrusion Protection Devices. Schools like businesses need a higher level of security than domestic suppliers to stop malware and other nasty things. This is one of the reasons why we always suggest companies who are educational suppliers. One of the major forms of attacks on a system is called a Dedicated Denial of Service (DDoS) attack and you should ask a supplier how they protect the school from such an attack. Sometimes the security settings, which can be called Firewall changes, need to be altered. You need to know how quickly these changes can be made. If you have a good technician, can they be allowed to make these changes?

Filtering – This should always be provided and schools should be able to control their own filter settings (or allow an outside agent to make the changes). The filter should also meet the new regulations stated in the Keeping Children Safe in Education document from the DFE[1]. Our adviceis that the filter package should have policy group or user based filtering and therefore the ability to have different access for different people. Again you have to consider if you or your school have the technical ability to change these settings.

Monitoring–within the Keeping Children Safe in Education document also mentions the need to be able to see what addresses users access. This is normally a feature of user based filtering. The company should also agree to the monitoring aspects of the new advice given in the Keeping Children Safe in Education document.[2]

5 What is the support for mobile devices?

Most schools these days support mobile devices through wireless connections. With a new connection this provision needs to be supported. There are two main ways of doing this: an open system that just allows any device to access a connection or a ‘guest’ account that may have some type of validation. You should ask questions about how the new connection provides this.

6 Are there new opportunities?

The provision of a new connection gives you new opportunities in your school.

User Based Filtering – The ability to provide filtering based on the log in of the user. Different profiles could be used to allow staff a different access to year 6 and likewise year 1.

BYOD – in some school it might give you the change to allow users to bring their own devices.

Telephony – most companies also offer to provide Voice Over Internet phone (VOIP). This can provide a cheaper integrated communication strategy.

Cloud Services – Most companies will offer to integrate either Google Apps or Office365 providing learner email and other resources for the school.

Other technical developments – a more reliable connection could mean that you could look at different technical solutions such as remote backup and remote access saving you money in the long term.

7 Who gives best value for money?

Best value can be difficult to ascertain and will vary from school to school. In such it is a decision based on the connection that the school can get, the size of the school, the technical support in the school and many other factors.

If you feel that you do not have the time to consider all the possibilities, then get in contact with eLIM who will help lead you through the process.

1Thursday, 01 November 2018

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