2024/2025 Service Definition

Broadband & Online Services Bundle

About the Service 

Our Broadband and Online Services bundle provides a range of essential features, including firewalls, filtering and email to support your school or multi-academy trust with safe, reliable and trusted broadband and related services.

Our broadband network has been helping to protect pupils' online learning for almost 25 years and our continued investment and innovation has ensured schools can benefit from increased bandwidth options and security features that meet, or exceed DfE technology standards. Once connected, you will become a part of our private network which provides best in class educational security and filtering as standard. 

The CLEO broadband network is operated by Lancashire County Council and has multiple redundant connections to the internet including through the UK Universities (JANET) network, which helps ensure that schools' broadband is robust and reliable. JANET also interconnects with other regional schools' networks across the UK to form The National Education Network (The NEN).

What are the benefits?

  • Fully managed broadband service including all configuration and security, and options to ensure that you are able to meet or exceed the broadband internet standards set by the DfE.
  • Highly resilient network with multiple data centres, multiple connections to the JANET network and connectivity at key internet service provider exchange locations.
  • Internet with filtering and firewalls to ensure schools are able to access the internet and cloud-based services, such as Microsoft Office 365 and Digital Telephony, securely and reliably.
  • Inclusive Netsweeper Web Filtering and Monitoring and Alerting tools for online safeguarding which can be customised locally to your school's needs, helping to ensure your school meets the online safeguarding requirements expected by Ofsted, KCSIE (Keeping Children Safe in Education) and the filtering and monitoring technology standards set by the DfE.
  • Reassurance, that in the event of external attack, both our network security experts and the JANET (JISC) CSIRT service are there to help protect your school. Our experts communicate directly with JANET CSIRT on your behalf.
  • Ability to support multi-academy trusts or collections of schools who have a requirement for a private and secure School WAN (Wide Area Network).
  • We operate an ISP Broadband Network in Lancashire and surrounding area’s that is innovative and unique. It is managed by Lancashire County Council and exists specifically to meet the high demand and great value that is required by Education and the Public Sector.

What's Included?

Broadband Options Available:

Our standard options for schools who are ready to go with Full-Fibre connectivity are as follows:

GigaFast Fibre

Our GigaFast Fibre offering is our fastest ever dedicated offering for primary schools and is based on the gigabit capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP), sometimes referred to as 'full fibre'. Our offering exceeds the DfE recommended bandwidth for a primary school, providing an average speed of 900Mbps download and 100Mbps upload.

  • This is our default service for Primary, Nursery, Special and Short-Stay Schools.
  • This service is a full fibre solution, ensuring fibre connectivity right to your school building.
  • New managed service enterprise grade gigabit capable router provided as part of new connection.
  • We ensure that an enhanced Supplier care level is included as standard.

We offer existing Primary, Nursery, Special and Short-Stay School customers a free upgrade to GigaFast as soon as it is available! 8
GigaFibre One

Our GigaFibre One offering is perfect for secondary schools and meets the DfE bandwidth requirement. It is based on a 1Gbps leased fibre or dark fibre that can provide an average symmetrical connection exceeding 900Mbps.

  • This is our default service for Secondary schools.
  • This service is for a dedicated leased or dark fibre optic cable right to your school building.
  • New managed service enterprise grade gigabit capable router provided as part of new connection.

We offer existing qualifying secondary school customers a free upgrade to this service! 9

We also have a range of other broadband connectivity options available, for those schools who are in areas where GigaFast Fibre and GigaFibre One are not yet available.

Superfast and Ultrafast Broadband for Schools
  • Superfast Broadband for Schools uses copper wire between a green cabinet and your school.
  • Average speed for Superfast is 62Mbps download / 15Mbps upload.
  • Actual speed will vary depending on distance to the nearest cabinet.
  • Some schools can receive the maximum speed of 75Mbps download and 19Mbps upload.
  • In some limited cases, we may be able to provide schools with an increased speed of up to 320Mbps download and 45Mbps upload, known as Ultrafast Broadband for Schools.
Bespoke, Alternative or Temporary Broadband Connectivity
  • We can provide bespoke broadband options to support the connectivity needs of Multi-Academy Trusts, second sites or schools who reside within a Campus or Multi-Tenanted premises.
  • We can provide alternative broadband connectivity options based on school needs, for example multi-gigabit fibre, private fibre, radio, or Mobile LTE connectivity.
  • We have extensive experience supporting schools during challenging times, and can provide temporary connectivity options to support schools during a disaster or an emergency.
  • We can also provide temporary connectivity to support re-location, or to support a one-off event.

Back-up Broadband Connection Options:

Your broadband subscription is inclusive of our emergency Mobile LTE backup service that provides continued access to your service using the mobile network. This will temporarily be installed by our engineer if we are unable to quickly resolve a fibre or copper circuit fault that is local to your school10.

In addition, for the ultimate peace of mind and reliability, we are also able to offer resilient connectivity to ensure that your school's broadband is highly available with minimal or no disruption in service.

Please refer to our separate Back-up Broadband Connection service for more information or contact EducationDigitalServices@Lancashire.gov.uk to discuss options.

School WAN (Wide Area Network):

New for 2024/25: We have supported schools who operate within a cluster by enabling connectivity between schools since the inception of the CLEO broadband network, and we’re pleased to continue offering that same capability and flexibility today through our new and improved School WAN option.

School WAN is the perfect fit for any multi-academy trust, or collection of schools that are either operating as a single entity, or just need the ability to collaborate. It allows any number of schools to share resources, for example the same active directory domain, using a private Wide Area Network that is built on the reliable and secure CLEO Broadband network.

With School WAN, we can aggregate the web filtering logging and management for all the schools within your collection, or multi-academy trust, allowing for the filtering to be managed and controlled by you from a single interface.

School WAN is included as part of your Broadband & Online Services Bundle and we can enable it for any Broadband service that we provide. There are no geographic restrictions, or hidden charges, and it can be requested at any time through our ICT Service Centre.

Service Features

Our Broadband and Online Services bundle includes all the following features. Please refer to the service definition for each feature for further details.

Broadband & Online Services Bundle

 Inclusive
Feature

 

Broadband

  • A variety of broadband options providing a range of bandwidths to suit the need of schools, or multi-academy trusts.
  • School WAN to allow collaboration or seamless connectivity between CLEO connected schools.
 YES

 

CLEO Broadband Network

  • Connection to the CLEO Broadband Network, providing ISP grade firewall, DDoS protection, enhanced network security protection for pupils/staff and interconnection to the National Education Network (The NEN) via JANET the Universities network.
 YES

Web Filtering & Online Protection (Netsweeper)

  • Includes access to our Netsweeper HTTP and HTTPS filtering system for safe internet access.
  • Includes local control and reporting features that can integrate with your school's Active Directory to tailor filtering to groups.
 YES

Monitoring and Alerting (Netsweeper)

  • Includes access to our Netsweeper OnGuard alerting and monitoring, to provide schools with an online activity safeguarding system to monitor pupils' digital usage.
  • Works online and offline, scanning internet content, desktop content and user-submitted data in real time.
 YES

Microsoft Office 365 (Email and Cloud Applications)

Our supported Microsoft 365 Education service, includes the following cloud functionality:

  • Email – Staff and student email including group calendaring.
  • Teams – for communications online.
  • SharePoint online – Staff document repository and collaboration environment including school website.
  • OneDrive Pro – Cloud based storage for staff and students.
  • Microsoft Office Web Apps – Basic Office functionality using Office Web Applications.
 YES

Anti-Virus and Threat Protection (Sophos Central)

  • Sophos Central is a cloud hosted security suite that provides schools access to modern security tools and protection.
  • Your bundle includes server and client licences for Sophos Central Endpoint InterceptX protection.
 YES

Domain Name Registration & DNS management

  • A fully managed service for all aspects of Domain Name Registration and DNS Management for your School's external domain name.
 YES

Content Resources for Teachers

  • As a NEN connected school, you also benefit from free access to a wide range of NEN resources developed by other Regional Broadband Consortia and Local Authorities. Visit www.nen.gov.uk for full list of available resources.
  • Your broadband connection also provides access to JANET peering which provides dedicated access for CLEO connected schools to Microsoft EU, Google and the BBC.
 YES

Engineer Support & Hardware Replacement

  • Our broadband service includes support from specialist field engineers for fast response to faults. Most of our broadband faults are resolved in less than two hours, often without a site visit.
  • Should this be required, your broadband service includes free on-site visits and free replacement of your broadband hardware in the event of failure.
  • Includes emergency LTE Mobile backup, which if possible, will be temporarily installed if we are unable to quickly resolve a fault.
 YES

 

ICT Service Centre

  • Our ICT Service Centre service provides telephone and online fault reporting and is operational from 8am to 5pm (Monday – Friday excluding Bank Holidays and statutory leave days).
  • The service includes full escalation routes ensuring, that if your school does experience problems with the service, that our staff are focused on solving your issues.
 YES