Sustained outage in Fibre to a 'semi rural' school, backup service options?

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Shoes2468

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#1060973 7-Jun-2014 17:34

Not knowing the geographics etc but are there any houses nearby maybe a staffer or student live near/next to the school? Maybe you could setup a fixed wireless solution and piggyback off their adsl connection in the event of an outage, that way potentially no ongoing costs and most likely the lowest cost per gb if you need to contribute to the bill if there is an outage, could be some technical issues around mail though.

PhantomNVD

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#1061063 7-Jun-2014 21:25

Shoes2468: Not knowing the geographics etc but are there any houses nearby maybe a staffer or student live near/next to the school? Maybe you could setup a fixed wireless solution and piggyback off their adsl connection in the event of an outage, that way potentially no ongoing costs and most likely the lowest cost per gb if you need to contribute to the bill if there is an outage, could be some technical issues around mail though.

Seems like an EXCELLENT idea, thanks!

Only caveot... Would a main ISPs "home use" clause affect the willing staff/student account if they picked up the boost in traffic?

Shoes2468

794 posts

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#1061075 7-Jun-2014 22:24

PhantomNVD:
Shoes2468: Not knowing the geographics etc but are there any houses nearby maybe a staffer or student live near/next to the school? Maybe you could setup a fixed wireless solution and piggyback off their adsl connection in the event of an outage, that way potentially no ongoing costs and most likely the lowest cost per gb if you need to contribute to the bill if there is an outage, could be some technical issues around mail though.

Seems like an EXCELLENT idea, thanks!

Only caveot... Would a main ISPs "home use" clause affect the willing staff/student account if they picked up the boost in traffic?

I suppose it would depend on the ISP, I know that Vodafone have some thing in their t&cs on their unlimited plan about if they are on a per gb type of plan I doubt it would be an issue. Plus if they are on a capped plan you would need to make sure they don't get capped and slowed down to dial up.

Coil

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#1061076 7-Jun-2014 22:25

Shoes2468: Plus if they are on a capped plan you would need to make sure they don't get capped and slowed down to dial up.

Wrong info.

We dont offer this anymore only overage.

Shoes2468

794 posts

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#1061082 7-Jun-2014 22:40

TimA:
Shoes2468: Plus if they are on a capped plan you would need to make sure they don't get capped and slowed down to dial up.

Wrong info.

We dont offer this anymore only overage.

Wrong info???
As Vodafone are not the only ISP in the country this could very well be relevant, dependant on which ISP the person you will be sharing with is with.

michaelmurfy

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#1061145 8-Jun-2014 03:07

We've done a few School setups and they're all essentially the same (and work flawlessly). The school's 'UFB' connection + the local cabinet / exchange will be on different fibre more than likely, I personally would not ever recommend putting the school on 3G failover due to the fact students / staff won't know this has happened and will continue to use the internet as it is potentially racking up a huge 3G bill.

Personally - Office 365 for staff emails w/ AD sync to the local Active Directory server so that way you're not putting your eggs in one basket when such an outage occurs, the last thing you ever want is undelivered emails. We use the Cisco Meraki most of the time to handle the failover which can switch from the failed UFB connection to xDSL in a snap (often without any downtime) + has the advantage to limit internet use based on user / computer.

When the Meraki fails over it can be set to send the local admin an email so he/she knows it has happened - else everything still goes no problem.

In an event of a total fibre cut caused by a retarded contractor doing some roadworks causing a sustained outage if there is 3G you can either tell staff to tether (and still have access to email) or even plug a 3G modem into the failover modem to bring it to life again + set traffic restriction on the Meraki to reflect this (so people don't go on data intensive websites).

There is plenty of options really and I am quite happy to talk about some if you wish.

Michael Murphy | https://murfy.nz
Referral Links: Quic Broadband (use R122101E7CV7Q for free setup)

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DaveDog

336 posts

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#1061161 8-Jun-2014 09:07

Is it just me or is the proposed solution perhaps OTT compared to the problem. The school has a file server and on site access will not be affected by the internet being down. Surely a VPN outage isn't a big deal - the Staff can deal with it.

As far as mail goes I'd push it into the cloud with 365. That way even if the fibre is down it can be accessed anywhere anytime regardless.

Why make a simple issue into a third world problem?

radata

2 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1061174 8-Jun-2014 09:50

3G/4G is a good backup option as long as the network is not down in your area along with your BB outage.
The issue of traffic management is easily catered for in a good commercial grade solution.
Note, there is a lot of low cost low integrity hardware in the marketplace so beware...

Happy to point anyone interested in the right direction if you contact me.

Regards

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