[ELECTRON] broadband costs

[Simon Yuill]

Hi,

I have spoken with the the Phone Co-op to get details on what would be
the best broadband package for us.

The one that looks best value is one for small businesses they offer
called 'Business Saver 10':

	http://www.thephone.coop/business/soho.html

Costs are:

	£19 + VAT a month for line rental and broadband
	£99 + VAT for line installation
	£46.59 + VAT for a ZyXel 660H 4 Port Ethernet Router/Hub, preconfigured
with firewall (this is optional, if we can provide our own ADSL2+
modem-router)
	no setup fee

Phone calls are charged separately, depending on usage. The call charges
are:

	1.98p per minute - peak local
	1.99p per minute - peak national
	0.85p per minute - offpeak local
	1.3p per minute - offpeak national
	1.26p per minute - weekend national
	11p per minute - peak to all mobile networks
	8.5p per minute - offpeak to all mobile networks

We have to commit to a 12 month initial contract. We can pay either in
monthly installments by direct debit or in a lump sum in advance.
	
Although the total monthly usage is much lower than the cheapest
domestic package (Anytime Saver gives 40MB compared to the 10GB for the
business package), the upload speed for business customers is much
higher than for home users. Upload speed for business is 1024kbps
compared to 448Kbps for home users.

10GB may not sound much but provided we are not downloading loads of
video content it's quite a lot. There is a calculator here to help
estimate how much would be used:

http://www.thephone.coop/residential/broadband/capacity-calculator.html

Assuming in one month that people send 2,000 standard emails, 1,000 with
images, spend 3 hours day surfing, watch 200 video clips, download 10
pieces of software and make 2 big downloads, then that all comes to:
5.09 GB, well within the 10GB limit.


The cost for the first year would be:

	line installation:	£99.00
	ADSL modem		£46.59
	1 year's broadband	£228.00
	total (exc VAT):	£373.59

	VAT at 17.5%:		£65.38
	total (inc VAT):	£438.97


If we are going to raise funds for this, it might be sensible to try and
raise enough to cover 2 years broadband usage, which would add an
additional £267.90 (£228.00 + VAT). So the total for setup and 2 years
broadband would be:
	
	2 years (inc VAT): 	£706.87

I had a chat with Francis McKee, the director of CCA about this, and
asked if they would be willing to chip in if we shared the broadband
with them. This would be only for use in the Artist's Flat and the
gallery spaces, not part of the public wifi access or CCA office usage.
The Artist's Flat and gallery are two areas where the CCA sometimes need
a more specialised internet access for artist doing web-based work (such
as Martine Crispo who some of you might have met last year). Usage from
these two sources would vary depending on what kind of artists and
exhibitions they had in and is unlikely to be constant throughout the
year. Francis has said that they would be interested in contributing -
although final decision does not rest with him. Now that I have some
concrete costs I will get back in touch and see what they say.

In terms of making this happen at a practical level we have potentially
3 sources of funding this:

	- voluntary donations from groups and individuals currently using the
space who want to make use of the broadband
	- a possible contribution from the CCA
	- money raised from fund-raising event

Now that we have some concrete figures it would be good to hear from
those who would be up for donating so we can get a sense of how much we
have there.

Also, in terms of getting it off the ground sooner rather than later one
way to approach it might be to pull together enough for the basic
install plus 3 months broadband, this would be: £238.04. Then raise the
rest from CCA and the fund-raising event.

So what kind of fund-raising event? Well, we had a meeting last week and
I think Dan is going to get back to the list about that.


To get things started however, it would be good to get some feedback
from those interested in us having broadband.


best wishes
Si