Educational

Networking Services To Schools.

Under the UK governments IT for schools programme, most of the LAN infrastructure went to the suppliers of the applications and application devices, i.e. servers and PC's - raising OWNERSHIP issues.

Of all the networks that FastNetworks has encountered under the schools programs, nothing special was deployed i.e. all category 5 cabling and IEEE compliant switches. Those Local Education Authorities (LEA's) that had foresight deployed the network infrastructure as a separate entity, those that  had a complete solution from a single supplier could be faced with problems of LAN ownership, and also poor quality installations. The poor quality is derived from the use of sub-contractors, who are operating on price considerations only - a widespread practice in the data cabling industry. FastNetworks has completed many school installations, with the emphasis on delivering quality, with long-term support.

As a rule of thumb for secondary schools and particularly primary schools, consider the network as an independent service such as gas or electricity. Ensure the network is installed to industry standards and ensure those designing the network are qualified - see www.bicsi.org. Also ensure that long term technical support is available and inform the suppliers of the PC's, servers and applications that a network has been provided to current industry standards. 

See LAN Ownership