Viewing 30 posts - 1 through 30 (of 30 total)
  • Really? Business broadband incredulity…
  • matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    We have signed up to a new office lease(!), and now I am sorting orders for kit and broadband.

    Turns out a technology innovation park, part of a university site, has no fibre or cable supply, and has maximum estimated speed of 3mb (so likely less than that).

    We use remote desktops for all our work, shared between 8 of us. 3mb will not be enough. 🙁

    Leased line option? £950+vat per month, 3 year contract. 🙁
    Share of leased line via landlord? £50/mth for 3mb again. 🙁

    Seems absolute cr*p.

    jam-bo
    Full Member

    4G? they’ve just turned it on in my town and I’m getting 25-30 Mb/S.

    I get 8 on ADSL. if I can find a decent sim card data plan I’m quite tempted to go 4G rather than fibre.

    nickjb
    Free Member

    Would it be mean to suggest looking into these things before signing the lease? 😈

    Maybe a cantenna and wifi hotspot in a neighbouring house.

    Russell96
    Full Member

    Some ISP’s will offer ADSL bonding for example http://aa.net.uk/broadband-office1.html

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    Would it be mean to suggest looking into these things before signing the lease?

    Yes. Shame I was not involved until now. In addition, BT site shows fibre/Infinity available, only when you try to purchase does it say ‘no can do’…

    spooky_b329
    Full Member

    Tried BT for ethernet products? I thought it was a lot cheaper than £950 a month but could be incorrect as I might only see what Openreach charge BT, don’t know what BT may add on to it as the service provider.

    I think BT have cut their 1000mb prices so they are now cheaper than competitors 100mb prices. However there may also be installation charges if there is no fibre onsite, though if there are other potential customers onsite (multi tenancy etc) you may just pay for the section that comes into your building.

    I think there is a residential product called BT on Demand or similar, basically fibre to the premise. The installation charges are capped at something like £3k and rental is I think the same as Infinity.

    br
    Free Member

    Would it be mean to suggest looking into these things before signing the lease?

    This.

    Go discuss with (or embarrass) the person that agreed to the lease without asking all the Depts. Only way to ensure they consult on issues for next time.

    This happen to me in a previous life, although it was an acquisition and our Acquisition Exec had agreed to 6 months to bring them onto our systems (and off their ‘mother’ systems). He’d also budgeted £1/2m. I quoted him 12 months and £1m – we actually spent a bit less and did it a bit quicker. Got involved far earlier next time. 🙂

    br
    Free Member

    Tried BT for ethernet products? I thought it was a lot cheaper than £950 a month but could be incorrect as I might only see what Openreach charge BT, don’t know what BT may add on to it as the service provider.

    Depends on where the nearest PoP is, for us it’s 16 miles away – and twice that…

    nickc
    Full Member

    Yes. Shame I was not involved until now.

    Go back to person who has signed the lease. Explain to them what the requirements/ alternative costs are. End your discussion with the words “I’ll leave that with you, ok?”

    walk away from a problem that is not yours

    MrGrim
    Full Member

    Matt – From 1st April BT are extending their Connection Voucher scheme to include Stirling and surrounding areas. If i remember correctly you are not too far away.

    The voucher scheme is aimed at small businesses and registered charities and provides up to £3000 in grants to provide improved business broadband.

    Not sure if it’s relevant to what youa re looking for, but there is a link here:
    https://www.connectionvouchers.co.uk/new-cities-from-1-april/

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    MrGrim – that looks good Edit: we have had grants over £200k in last couple of years, so are not eligible.

    I love the fact folk here want me to go visit other dept and dump stuff on folk.

    It is 8 of us. In one room. Usually too busy. Being jack of all trades. As a charity. It is my boss, but we need to work together, not kick each other for mistakes.

    mrjmt
    Free Member

    Yes. Shame I was not involved until now. In addition, BT site shows fibre/Infinity available, only when you try to purchase does it say ‘no can do’…

    Out of interest, which speed were you trying to sign up for?

    We’ve just got FTTP 200mbps, website wouldn’t let me sign up for anything slower as it would be FTTC which isn’t available in our street.

    In your other thread you said that you’ve got fibre to the building? That suggests you’ve got FTTP, try going through the site with a 200mbps+ order and see if it lets you.

    I believe you can order a lower speed on FTTP if you call them up.

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    I was trying for more than the 3gb offered – Plusnet/BT were suggesting 76mb, which would be more than enough.

    mrjmt
    Free Member

    not the usage cap, the speed. The 76mb is FTTC (fibre to the cab).

    have a look here it’ll give you a better idea. Avoid the postcode checker if you can, use the address one instead.

    spooky_b329
    Full Member

    If the landlord already has a leased line and limiting you to 3mb he’s probably only got 10mb coming in. He may upgrade to 100mb if you share the cost, its the same fibre in to the building, depending on what he has it might involve a new NTE, or just some tapping away on a computer in India.

    bigyinn
    Free Member

    IF TalkTalk have an LLU presence in the local exchange then EFM might be worth looking at. Typically for a 3 year deal its a free installation + router and rental of £250-£300 per month if that fits your budget. Pretty much unlimited and uncontended too. Up and down speeds about the same, so useful for RDP etc.
    FTTP whilst good has VERY limited availability at present, the only place I’ve come across it being available is Falmouth (not much to you I know.)

    TPTcruiser
    Full Member

    Bonded pair of ADSL here. Still lucky to get 3 mb.
    I cycle past a cabinet on the way to work saying “whooshy optical inside”, next one up serving our industrial estate doesn’t. BT strangling the economy?

    bigyinn
    Free Member

    They basically activate the cabinet where there will be the highest take up first.

    scotroutes
    Full Member

    The point is why are you stressing about it?

    northernmatt
    Full Member

    Doesn’t help you but we have similar at our main branch. All the servers are kept there and the sales system is accessed remotely by the other branches. They both have 50mb fibre, main branch has 2mb and is on one of the largest trading estates in Europe (Team Valley) none of which has a speed higher than 2mb.

    codybrennan
    Free Member

    An aspect of my day to day working life is working out connectivity costs for customers on all kinds of connectivity methods, and I can tell you that the bane of my life are the so called “technology parks”.

    They’re very rarely built close to anything beefy networks-wise, and seem chosen as they are cheap and brownfield. Basically- they’re industrial estates.

    Matt, if you’d like me to take a wee look for you, I’d be happy to give you the lie of the land in your area- email address is:

    127.0.0.1
    AT
    HOTMAIL
    DOT CO
    DOT UK

    Russell96
    Full Member

    @codybrennan I think we must do the same job!

    codybrennan
    Free Member

    🙂

    Its a small world for guys like us Russell!

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    I just find the cost astronomical, especially in the light of how cheap fibre residential deals are.
    I am surprised, in a city, on a university site, at an innovation park with lots of IT startups, that the only options seem to be ‘special’, rather than simple.

    aracer
    Free Member

    I love your e-mail address, localhost!

    aracer
    Free Member

    I get ~16Mb here on a bog standard ADSL deal (we’ve also just got FTTC availability). Yet the local school half a mile down the road (half a mile nearer the exchange) has some special business deal which costs them about 10 times as much and gets 6Mb on a good day. Sometimes when I’m in doing IT stuff I reckon it would be quicker to walk home with a USB stick to get a download.

    ourmaninthenorth
    Full Member

    Tried BT…?

    Don’t make me laugh. BT have more than 50% of the business broadband market and rip off businesses everywhere.

    There are stacks of better Ethernet providers out there who will give a better service at a significant cost saving.

    codybrennan
    Free Member

    aracer – Member
    I love your e-mail address, localhost!

    🙂

    Yeah, I like it too…was a shame the Gmail one had already gone!

    Matt, as I was saying, this situation is all too common. You’ll find that the owners of the park have adopted a ‘build it and they will come’ approach to this estate, with no real provision made for you. Its been a cheap piece of land, with often nothing on or in it from a networks standpoint. They’ve stuck it out there in the hope of getting rent, essentially, and a (to my mind) slightly misleading site name with “technology” or “innovation” in the title.

    And its often a huge disappointment for a customer who asks (just as you do) why the situation where they are isn’t like the domestic market. To an extent the domestic market has led to unrealistic expectations in SME- fair enough.

    From a provider’s standpoint, the best situation is for a customer to be ‘on-net’- existing services, fibres, ducts, maybe even muxes, that make it easy and cheap to get additional services into the buildings.

    Second to that is ‘near-net’- where existing ducts, fibres, come somewhere close by and there’s spare capacity. Then its usually a short dig to get you hooked up.

    If this isn’t the case, someone has to blink first. That’s usually where the prices start to creep up.

    However, as others have said above though, things are opening up a bit. Cheapish ethernet variants are now out there (I’m thinking EFM/Etherway, some EADs) which might be available where you are. It depends often on what who you’re talking to has in stock, and the specifics of your location.

    As said, happy to give you some advice offline on what’s going on where you are (I wear a technical sales hat but this is just mate to mate)- but will say: don’t go for any of the satellite “broadband” offerings if you’re going to be running RDP.

    lesgrandepotato
    Full Member

    Surely an RDP / ICA session is about 20k? Why the need for 3mb +.

    Latency would be more of a concern than bandwidth.

    Yours a remote worker, Cumbria next to the Sheep.

    Nick

    surfer
    Free Member

    Have a look on Sam Knows which will tell you accurately what is available.

    Another option is some type of EFM which you will get for less than your quote (IANRAT by the way) but it depends on the “type” of users and their requirements. You will also need to think of some failover.

    don’t go for any of the satellite “broadband” offerings if you’re going to be running RDP.

    +1

    You could also look at ways to mitigate the speed by putting services local where possible such as file and printing (use something like DFS or even Xcopy for some degree of DR)

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