A specialist ISP for the UK education market, Schools Broadband, has invited schools to beta test their new 330Mbps G.fast based ultrafast broadband service. Participants can expect a free installation and free no-obligation service for 1 year (includes DfE compliant web filtering and network security).
At present Openreach is deploying their new hybrid fibre G.fast technology to 1 million UK premises (part of an initial pilot) and they expect to reach 10 million by the end of 2020 (13 million if you include their “full fibre” FTTP technology). The service is currently so new that only a few ISPs have packages available (e.g. BT, Cerberus and uno) but we are expecting more to follow imminently.
The Schools Broadband trial appears to be focused on the top ‘up to’ 330Mbps (50Mbps uploads) G.fast tier and the ISP claims that their offer could be worth approximately £4,000 to a primary school, which certainly seems like something to consider. Any schools with an interest have been asked to contact the provider directly.
“the ISP claims that their offer could be worth approximately £4,000 to a primary school”
That seems expensive for a broadband service, is on a par with a dedicated Ethernet connection. Clearly the web filtering and network security cost quite a lot of money!
It seems that they’re offering connectivity for free & their filtering solution on top. Probably explains where that figure is coming from
That strikes me as an awful lot for pretty simple filtering that could be achieved on a not very expensive gateway.
The GFast unlimited should cost £1200/yr with line rental all in if fixed IP’s, uncontended connection & SLA etc are needed.
Although I suspect the sticker that says “it is compliant with XYX” is probably where the cost is. And we (3rd party provider) will provide insurance to clean up any mess ups and carry the can.
You can buy one hell of a gateway from Sonic Wall etc for the balance of the money with support for 3 years and licenses.
Sadly web filtering in schools is not as simple as plonking in your own gateway with squid or dansguardian.
You need a reliable filter list, SSL interception and the difficult to obtain “police assessed list of terrorist content” (sometimes known as the “prevent list”).
Very few web filter companies comply with that last one.
The problem with free, no obligation services, especially for schools, is that they’re unlikely to change provider at the end because it is easier saying with what you have – which I suspect is what they’re hoping for.
ISP has taken amazing step of checking the quality of its service before putting it into ground. Beta testing will allow ISP to know about the flaws of the system so that company can rectify all the problems on grassroot level without any problem to the users like solar movie
If the same problem persists after release of whole concept of this hight speed internet then it can create problem to the users then company might face more issues. Beta testing is a good step. Highly informative. Thanks for sharing.