Internet Service Information

Bedfordshire Schools' Web Site - Internet Service Information

Internet / ICT Service Information
For updates and information please ring the ICT helpdesk on 01525 836040. The helpdesk is open 08.30 to 17.00 Monday to Friday. Please leave a message outside of these times.

Service Information
28th to 30th September 2007	County Hall Communications team are planning to upgrade the Firewall systems at County Hall, with a view to increasing internet security for all connected schools. The upgraded system will provide better control and will help mitigate external and internal (school-to-school) attacks, and help reduce the chance that a school’s IT system be used to compromise other sites out on the wider internet, or within the Council network itself. It will also permit ease of troubleshooting in the event of malicious attacks, and will provide a better audit trail than is currently available. We understand that many applications and services will be web-based, and so the usual TCP ports 80 and 443 will be available. Normal web based applications such as web-browsing, email and Avco secure data transfer, will of course all be allowed through the new firewall. For the vast majority of schools our standard configuration will be fine, however if you are in any doubt as to whether you have any “special requirements” please consult with you IT maintenance supplier. The first phase of installation is likely to be happening between the 27th and 28th September 07, but work will only be done after 7.30 pm. This may affect evening access from schools. Further major work is expected on Saturday 29th September, and there may be outages at any time on that day. We hope to have all our systems fully up and running again by Monday morning 1st October. If this has created any problems for you please email newfirewall@schools.bedfordshire.gov.uk or ring the ICT helpdesk.
10th May 2007	Problems on the E2BN core network caused the loss of Internet this morning across several counties in the E2BN Region. E2BN resolved the issue at 13.15 today. A full report has been requested from E2BN/Easynet and should be available next week.
18th January 2007	Severe weather conditions and high winds caused power outages across the region, and some disruption to wireless Broadband links.
11th January 2007	Some disruption to Broadband Services caused by high winds, affecting some wireless links.
14th September 2006	The recent electrical storms across the county have created a number of failures in communications equipment connected to BT lines, particularly in the more rural areas of Bedfordshire. We have engineers working across the county to repair the faults and replace damaged equipment. However, due to the large number of systems affected, there may be delays in restoring normal service for some schools. Apologies for these delays but staff at County Hall and Russell House are giving the repairs top priority and working as fast as possible.
13th September 2006	Some schools have recently experienced problems in updating their websites hosted by BCC. This was due to authentication errors on the servers. These have now been rectified and authorised users in schools should be now be able to update their websites.
4th September 2006	Over the summer vacation. all the Internet services previously located in Ampthill have been upgraded and moved to the new Russell House at Priory Business Park in Bedford. This should provide even faster access to hosted services for school connected to the broadband network.

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