1 Internet Connection for 25 Student Flats
- Thread starter foz2000
- Start date
Guys, I think you're missing the bit where Virgin say 'NO!' to all your suggestions. you really think they'll allow him to get a 100Meg Virgin cable service for £30 (or whatever it is a month) and then let him run 40 other connections through it? you really think that constitutes 'fair use'? Now if Virgin media is available and you speak to the right person within the company, they MAY come out and wire each of the flats up with their own cabling in exchange for being the only service available or something, but I find it highly unlikely Virgin will allow what he's looking to do. At least then Virgin can make the money back from all the students who then pay Virgin for their service.
Of course all this is dependant on Virgin actually being available in or close to the flats!
Even at 40 flats your dedicated fibre connection works out at around £16 per month. if you could set up a switch that can limit the connection to the basic speeds for free and then offer more bandwidth for an additional fee, you could actually make a profit!
Of course all this is dependant on Virgin actually being available in or close to the flats!
Even at 40 flats your dedicated fibre connection works out at around £16 per month. if you could set up a switch that can limit the connection to the basic speeds for free and then offer more bandwidth for an additional fee, you could actually make a profit!
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Is that 10mb per room or 10mb overall? Or is it a typo and you mean 100mb?
It's 10mb per room.
One student per room, I was told it was 1:1 but I'm not 100% sure.
its the upload speed that will be killing the internet with 25 people.....
you get crappy uploads on normal accounts and your not suposed to share them between loads of people
what ever you are left with personally I would be looking into some sort of server proxy even if it just to keep the sessions speed limited for a fup else you will end up with one person doing loads of youtube and someone else trying to download some student based MS application and the whole thing will fall over
I think there's a few considerations here that people haven't considered.
Security
I wouldn't want to be on the same lan as my next door neighbour.
I'd suggest a managed switch with smallish subnet dedicated for each flat. Say /28 for each flat.
bandwidth
I'd be looking at blocking P2P, and putting in a transparent proxy to preserve ISP bandwidth. A decent Qos policy with burst options can give decent enough experiance. You can even look to load balance the WAN connection, several ADSL lines if it had to be or FTTC.
£5k would be more than enough for hardware and someone to set it up.
Security
I wouldn't want to be on the same lan as my next door neighbour.
I'd suggest a managed switch with smallish subnet dedicated for each flat. Say /28 for each flat.
bandwidth
I'd be looking at blocking P2P, and putting in a transparent proxy to preserve ISP bandwidth. A decent Qos policy with burst options can give decent enough experiance. You can even look to load balance the WAN connection, several ADSL lines if it had to be or FTTC.
£5k would be more than enough for hardware and someone to set it up.
Sorry, is this a block of flats you own? A large house converted into seperate rooms? Not sure if that has been covered.
If either is the case, I would speak with Virgin Business dept, I am sure they would install there hardware for free or at a heavily reduced rate. Allowing for cables to be run to every room for TV + Broadband.
All you would end up paying for is the internet connection, which again may be reduced if done on a yearly rate / bulk buy etc.
I live in a block of flats, though I pay for my internet connection seperately, I can't imagine the leaseholders forked out substantial money to put Virgin in there in the first place. I would think Virgin would see it as a revenue source and not a major cost after implementation.
Of course with the solution above, you will be limited to Virgin ONLY as it will be there hardware box at the end of the day. I would investigate it though, if they want to charge something ridiculous then tell them where to go
Alternatively, as already covered, you could have multiple BB lines coming into the property and you build a network splitting the resource of each line across the rooms.
If either is the case, I would speak with Virgin Business dept, I am sure they would install there hardware for free or at a heavily reduced rate. Allowing for cables to be run to every room for TV + Broadband.
All you would end up paying for is the internet connection, which again may be reduced if done on a yearly rate / bulk buy etc.
I live in a block of flats, though I pay for my internet connection seperately, I can't imagine the leaseholders forked out substantial money to put Virgin in there in the first place. I would think Virgin would see it as a revenue source and not a major cost after implementation.
Of course with the solution above, you will be limited to Virgin ONLY as it will be there hardware box at the end of the day. I would investigate it though, if they want to charge something ridiculous then tell them where to go
Alternatively, as already covered, you could have multiple BB lines coming into the property and you build a network splitting the resource of each line across the rooms.
Deleted User 298457
Deleted User 298457
Start by patching each room into a patch panel, one per floor (access layer).
Get some decent quality switches, Cisco 3750's or 2950's if you're on a budget. You will need port security and possibly VLAN's if you want to further segregate traffic effectively. You can't use cheap switches as you will want to eliminate broadcast storms and dodgy LAN's they may have going.
Then you will need a decent router that allows you to manage services, e.g. blocking bit torrent, packet shaping, etc.
You can then whack a route to the internet and just plug in any ISP's router. Bare in mind with fibre to house the routers are expensive.
You will definitely need sometime with some fairly strong networking background to set this up for you. Wiring can be left to your builders as long as they terminate it to a patching cupboard somewhere near the entrance for either the ADSL phone line or fibre.
Get some decent quality switches, Cisco 3750's or 2950's if you're on a budget. You will need port security and possibly VLAN's if you want to further segregate traffic effectively. You can't use cheap switches as you will want to eliminate broadcast storms and dodgy LAN's they may have going.
Then you will need a decent router that allows you to manage services, e.g. blocking bit torrent, packet shaping, etc.
You can then whack a route to the internet and just plug in any ISP's router. Bare in mind with fibre to house the routers are expensive.
You will definitely need sometime with some fairly strong networking background to set this up for you. Wiring can be left to your builders as long as they terminate it to a patching cupboard somewhere near the entrance for either the ADSL phone line or fibre.
Sorry, is this a block of flats you own? A large house converted into seperate rooms? Not sure if that has been covered.
If either is the case, I would speak with Virgin Business dept, I am sure they would install there hardware for free or at a heavily reduced rate. Allowing for cables to be run to every room for TV + Broadband.
All you would end up paying for is the internet connection, which again may be reduced if done on a yearly rate / bulk buy etc.
I live in a block of flats, though I pay for my internet connection seperately, I can't imagine the leaseholders forked out substantial money to put Virgin in there in the first place. I would think Virgin would see it as a revenue source and not a major cost after implementation.
Of course with the solution above, you will be limited to Virgin ONLY as it will be there hardware box at the end of the day. I would investigate it though, if they want to charge something ridiculous then tell them where to go
Alternatively, as already covered, you could have multiple BB lines coming into the property and you build a network splitting the resource of each line across the rooms.
This is a renovated industrial building that is three storeys. Yes it's freehold and the ground floor is leased to a ethnic retail company. Each room has been designed and fitted with en suite showers and kitchens.
We could allow the students to find there own connections but the aim was to have internet facilities for all students for the future and not to have lots of retro fits at a later date. Also from another side the expense would offset some tax as the net profit would be reduced.
I'll update the thread on Thursday once I've had a company come in and run through some options with me and a cost breakdown.
Thanks for your post.
I'll start to have a look at that now, I think the wiring can be done by the builder. It's finding someone with that strong networking background.
Deleted User 298457
Deleted User 298457
If you crack on with patching to a centralised location it will make your work seem a lot easier.
Any one with CCNA should be capable of setting up such a simple network, check Gumtree.
25 students
6x seperate internet connections as with standard BT hubs
I assume cat 5 is already installed to a central point,
strictly no bittorrent
only cost is 6x line rental and BB per month....
disable the wireless for the odd students that want wireless supply them with a £20 wireless access point to plug into their ethernet port
6x seperate internet connections as with standard BT hubs
I assume cat 5 is already installed to a central point,
strictly no bittorrent
only cost is 6x line rental and BB per month....
disable the wireless for the odd students that want wireless supply them with a £20 wireless access point to plug into their ethernet port
Deleted User 298457
Deleted User 298457
Don't you think BT will be suspicious when they fit 6 installs into one flat, lol.
Just out of curiosity how much is b.t for line rental incl BB * 6?
Also need to think about the possibility of having an additional 16 students.