B4RN in Schools

B4RN is a community broadband project in the Lune Valley and surrounding area. They are working to build a fibre to the property (FTTP) network offering 1Gb/S symmetrical connections. These connections are incredibly (hyper)fast when compared to the BT Fibre To the Cabinet (FTTC) maximum of 70Mb/s (1Gb = 1024Mb). You can read more about B4RN on their website.

Using your B4RN Connection in School.

Once you have your connection you will have a router on the wall which provides this new faster connection. To filter this connection and maintain the network you currently have we have created the B4RNBox.

The B4RNBox has 2 network ports on it, one for your B4RN connection and one for your school network. Everything goes through this box making sure that your pupils can’t access any inappropriate material or security threats.

Inside the B4RNBox is 2TB of data storage for backups. You backup like normal to the box in your school and then overnight it copies your backups to another box in another school. Your box in turn will contain backups from other schools as well as your own.

Moving to B4RN

Leaving your current ISP can be daunting especially if they are the LEA. Here at Ed-IT Solutions we have helped a number of schools to move to other ISPs (B4RN included) and can give you a breakdown of how moving will work.

The process is pretty similar for all schools but there may well be special cases where extra work is needed.

If your thinking of changing ISP please contact us and we will be happy to advise you on the best course of action.