We spoke to Caroline Barry, Director of IT Systems from St Leonards-Mayfield, a Catholic Independent day and boarding school for girls aged 11 to 18 years, to discover how they have benefited from their transition to Exa Education.
The Setting:
“Our School’s connectivity had rapidly grown over three years from one PC connecting to the internet using a dial-up ISDN to 360 workstations and laptops all connecting. Using 4 ADSL lines to provide internet connectivity, contention for bandwidth on the lines became very difficult at varying times of the day within the village. After upgrading to a 2Mbps uncontended line the provision was still insufficient.”
The Requirements:
“We are seeing a change in the way in which we all, and in particular, our parent community want us to communicate. While our website has an important role to play, more and more parents are asking for interactive engagement with the School via a variety of digital channels, all dependent on the internet provision. It is also necessary for a boarding school like ours to receive 24/7 365 dependable internet services.”
The Solution:
“Following my annual visit to the Bett Show where I met with several ISPs, including Exa Education, Exa was invited into Mayfield to assess our needs. Their no-sales, non-jargon, factual approach was marvellous to work with.
The decision was made for Exa Education to provide a 100Mbps leased line, as well as a backup ADSL connection of up to 20Mbps which complies with our DR plan. Exa also provide a contention filtering system, SurfProtect®, inclusive with the cost of their connectivity service. The annual price is less than the expense of the lines charged by our previous ISP.”
The Outcome:
“Through Exa Education we are able to offer our school community the connectivity they need, when they need it and what they need it for in a reliable and professional manner. Exa might not be sitting next to us here in Mayfield but given their service and support we view them as an important part of our team.”
To see how an Exa Education service can help your school, contact us on the details below:
T: 0845 145 1234
E: W: www.exa.net.uk