Trevor,
I'm happy to get involved if I can. I'm a bit out of touch with the
world of Broadband. I used to work in BT selling to government in
the days when they were pushing regional development agencies
towards broadband aggregation so there would be a demand to get the
exchanges upgraded (and pay for it). I don't know what sort of deals
they are offering to remote communities like ours these days. NYCC
went with some unknown supplier (MTT?) to put microwave broadband
into their premises. If I remember correctly, Kellington Primary was
due to get it in 2002. Did it happen? If so, is it bigger than 2Mb?
As for firewall and concurrent users, on busy evenings I'm presently
fighting my wife and two kids for a share of my 56k modem and my
annual subscriptions to Norton add up to nearly £100. Four more
households like mine and your 20 sessions are all gone. Offer me a
decent firewall and I can put the money I'll save buying Norton
towards subscribing to the service.
If we are likely to be in regular correspondance about this do you
want to do it outside this discussion group? Either emails me at
dwaller@... or come and knock on the door at a reasonable
hour.

Dave