Schools save money by switching broadband suppliers

According to recent reports hundreds of schools have collectively saved millions of pounds over the past few years simply by changing their broadband service providers.

It has been claimed in a recent report that hundreds of schools have managed to save millions of pounds between them over the past few years, and this has resulted from simply switching their broadband service provider. Around four hundred and fifty schools in the North East are said to have saved twenty million pounds on their broadband costs over the past three years by switching providers.

Whilst other factors have also contributed to the savings made on their broadband services one of the key factors involved was switching from BT to Easynet for many of the schools according to the report. The broadband switch was overseen by the Northern Grid for Learning, which has been working with Easynet for nearly a decade.

The changes were made when BT increased the cost for its 10Mbps broadband connections. One industry official said: “These are the types of connection used by primary schools and the increased price became a burden. Where the telephone exchanges had been upgraded we swapped out the 10Mbit/s BT circuits for circuits [of 10Mbit/s or 20Mbit/s] provided by Easynet, which were cheaper. We are still waiting on a number of upgrades though.”

An official from the Northern Grid for Learning said: “Prior to this upgrade schools were regularly using 75 per cent of their broadband capacity, and some were experiencing latency and other problems as a result. The enhanced capacity has overcome this problem.” She added: “On the one hand people need to buy into the idea of sharing services in this way, and that’s a significant hurdle in itself. But the technical challenges are more daunting. Joining networks as well as ensuring capacity and security [necessary for schools and hospitals sending private data] is a big task.”

Source – Computing