Moving away from ICT4Leeds connectivity and Smoothwall
It has recently been announced that the services of ICT4Leeds are to be deceased and Leeds city council are looking to ask schools to change providers. if your a school and wondering where to turn, we have create this short article of things to question and things to look for in your new connectivity package and/or phone system
Most internet providers who have a dedicated service to schools will be able to provide your school with an FTTP line, this is the favoured connection as its the fastest, cheapest and most reliable. so where possible choose an FTTP connection. if your having trouble getting FTTP into your school, the internet service provider can help, and we have also had recent success with working through the Leeds full fibre programme team.
Not all FTTP lines are the same, look for one that supports the fastest speeds (upto 1GB ideally!) and also check the upload speeds.
Firewalls can get very technical very quickly, ICT4Leeds previously provided a smoothwall appliance which was an onsite firewall which managed the security policies for the school, before moving ask the ICT4Leeds team to provide an export of these policies this will help when moving supplier. Ensure the firewall that your ISP is providing will not bottle neck your speeds, an onsite hardware appliance is generally seen as the favoured, and ensure that the appliance can handle the number of devices or remote connections into the school network.
Now is a good time to hunt for the right price for your internet connection, a lot of suppliers will be out wanting to win the business of the schools, don’t make cost your driving force, but look at a supplier that’s not charging the earth.
Finally, as how good the safeguarding provision is, does the connection package block everything that needs blocking, and provide you with the relevant logging of student concerns from the onsite or offsite devices.
If you need advice or would like to discuss moving broadband package from ICT4Leeds, please feel free to get in touch steven@nextgen-it.co.uk