About Broadband for Education and how we check our facts

What this site is

An independent guide for the people who plan, buy and run connectivity in further and higher education: business and finance managers, IT and network managers, procurement teams and governors. Alongside the guides there’s a bandwidth estimator, a printable provider checklist, key figures, a glossary, common questions and a free supplier directory.

Independent: not a broker, not a supplier

Broadband for Education is an independent guide. It is not a broker or a supplier, and it is not owned by, or connected to, Jisc, any network provider, framework or government body. We don’t sell connectivity, we don’t take a fee for introductions, and no supplier pays to be listed, to be left out or to move up the directory. Nothing here is personal advice: for your own procurement, check the current guidance and your institution’s rules, and take technical or legal advice where you need it.

How every guide is researched

• Sources we have read. We work from Jisc, government, regulator and framework publications and, for the directory, suppliers’ own websites. Each guide lists the pages it was written from, and all of them are collected on our sources page.
• Dated checks. Each guide, figure and listing shows when it was last checked. Figures that change live in one key figures table.
• Company says, or verified. In the directory, a framework is marked “verified” only when we found the company on the framework’s own supplier list; otherwise it is shown as what the company says.
• Our own words. We rewrite what we read to be clearer. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
• If we can’t verify it, we leave it out — or say plainly that it is unconfirmed. We haven’t tested any supplier’s service ourselves.

About the estimator and checklist

The bandwidth estimator multiplies the numbers you give it; it has no made-up defaults, and only offers per-user figures we can source. The provider checklist is drawn from the guides. Both are prompts, not a specification.

Schools and trusts

Schools have their own standards and funding. Our sister site Broadband for Schools covers them.

How the site is paid for

Banner ads, which only load if you accept ads cookies. That never changes what we write. See how we’re paid.

Who runs it

Broadband for Education is owned by Steven Smith. If something here is out of date or wrong, please tell us — ideally with a link to the page that shows it. We correct errors as soon as we can and update the “checked” date.