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Looking for Managed Business DSL service in London area

Hi
On behalf of a friend who is totally non-technical, I'm researching for a new DSL provider for his business in Finchley.

They currently use PIPEX and are not that pleased with performance. Also, their needs have changed. They are a firm of architects and now have several remote workers who are using CAD software (locally) but need to sync large files, send receive email etc. They also have a VOIP PBX that has remote extensions. At this point their Internet access is now critical to the business.

Due to them not having any proper internal IT expertise I'm advising them to find a reputable ISP who can spec and then provide a managed DSL service. By managed I mean that the ISP takes total responsibility for the service from the LAN port outwards: i.e. supplying, configuring and monitoring the firewall, router, modem and connection. I don't want the firm to have to ring up to say their Internet is down, I want the ISP to have been monitoring proactively.

Separately, I'm finding them an IT service company to manage the internal IT. It may be that this ends up being the same company but I want to get an independent view of the ISP side for now.

Any advice would be welcome.

Guff
 
The SME clients I work with tend to have a support company who looks after all the infrastructure and kit and liases with the ISP in most cases.

Some of the clients do deal with the ISP directly, but that isn't what you want; even though some ISPs such as Andrews and Arnold are noted for the fact that they do monitor all their customers' connections what they can't really do is pop round and test the router to see if it's faulty, so someone on site has to run through the diagnosis while they're physically sat with the modem for instance, swap it out with a spare they brought along and so forth.

That's not knocking them at all, but if they're fifty miles away and what's required is a complete service where one phone call "does it all" or someone swings into action from an alert picked up by the remote monitoring requiring "hands-on" it's a bit more involved.

If internet is critical to the business I'd suggest ADSL isn't really appropriate. Or, at the very least, if the place can get a secondary service e.g. from Virgin business (on the cable network, *not* over ADSL) then you have some redundancy. Having two ADSL circuits isn't really redundant because there's still an obvious single point of failure (several, actually - HGV takes out dropwires, exchange-wide fault etc) but it's better than one. Especially if they use different backhaul - e.g. said Andrews and Arnold could provision one circuit via BT Wholesale and another via e.g. BE.

Other options would be something like a leased line or EFM (Ethernet in the First Mile) which will be significantly more expensive but comes with the all-important SLA - it really is a managed service in itself.

Finally, I do know a company who does this (as in: the support) - however *disclaimer* the owner is someone I know through business dealings and personally. So I'll post the link, do have a look, bear in mind I don't use their services, but they're not a million miles away from the location in question and might be worth getting a competitive quote from:

http://www.amazingsupport.co.uk

Hopefully others will also give you some more ideas.
 
Thanks, Mark
Like I said, it may end up being the same company, but I want to be sure it's a company that delivers a good Internet service first and foremost. Unfortunately, Virgin are not in their street. That was my first port of call.

Having said that Internet is critical, their overall service level requirement is quite reasonable. Also, they're very careful with their money :-) There's good 3G coverage, so maybe ADSL with 3G backup might work
 
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ADSL with 3G backup will work, but that's not a managed service.

You can get some routers which have built-in failover e.g. the one we have is a 3G HSPA modem which is the primary connection but if that goes down it's capable of switching over to ADSL automatically, and vice versa which would probably be more common for most - our HSPA is 4x quicker than ADSL.

However if the connection still goes dead, it's still going to need hands-on potentially which will be one of the clients people ringing up the ISP and performing diagnostics and it would help if they knew something about their setup and router.

Andrews and Arnold offer both the ADSL and the failover 3G service and can supply a Firebrick router with the failover capability, it's not cheap though.

So far as I know, no ISPs will come "on site" for anything less than EFM/leased line services with SLAs. Usually the way it works is that your carry out the diagnostics with the ISP on the phone, if the fault cannot be found or appears to be a physical service fault then Openreach are booked to come out and fix it, but then if the fault is actually not their responsibility the client is charged for the callout. One essential is to make sure that the line rental and the ADSL are with the same company so there's no buck-passing opportunity.

A support company sits in the middle and does the hands-on bit. So far as I know most charge a monthly fee which probably includes a certain number of hours built-in and then charges for time used over and above that. Basically, it's like buying insurance - which is what it really is.
 
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