How Does a Leased Line Differ From a Regular Broadband Connection?

Whether you run a FinTech business enabling financial transactions or a design agency regularly transferring high resolution images and video files, leased lines are an essential part of your internet connectivity. They can offer incredibly fast, reliable and guaranteed speeds of one or even 10 gigabits per second.

They are symmetrical so upload and download speeds match. They also come with a Service Level Agreement and are constantly monitored and troubleshooted by your provider.

Dedicated Connection

With a dedicated internet leased line, you can be sure that your connection won’t be slowed down by others sharing the same circuit. This is known as contention and it’s something that can be experienced with broadband connections, especially at peak times.

Another advantage of a leased line is that it is uncontended and therefore offers symmetrical download and upload speeds. This is beneficial for businesses that use cloud services which require a good upload speed, such as video conferencing or telephony.

Leased lines also have low latency levels, which means that it doesn’t take long for web pages to load. Finally, most leased line connections are scalable and you can increase your bandwidth at short notice to meet business requirements. This is something that isn’t available with most broadband packages.

No Contention

Businesses that rely on their connectivity for IT data, cloud applications and telephony need to know their internet connection won’t go down. Leased lines are a stable option that guarantees a certain speed, meaning business-critical activities will continue without interruption.

Leased lines operate over an uncontended network – which means you won’t be sharing the circuit with anyone else like you do with broadband. This means your speed won’t be impacted by congestion during busy times.

Leased lines also offer symmetrical download and upload speeds – which isn’t the case with many broadband connections. This is particularly important for businesses with large data uploads or a need for quick scalability. Low latency is also a key benefit of leased lines which is necessary for smooth running of bandwidth-heavy activities such as video conferencing and VoIP phone systems.

Low Latency

In a business, it is vital to have a low latency internet connection. This is because businesses rely on their internet connection for IT data, video conferencing, cloud services and data backups among many other things.

Leased lines are uncontended, so your speed is guaranteed – unlike standard broadband, which can experience traffic jams at peak times due to congestion. This can lead to jittery videos and calls, slow upload speeds and poor overall connectivity.

A leased line is also often an unmetered service, so you won’t get hit with expensive ‘fair usage policies’ that throttle your speeds after a certain amount of data use. This makes a leased line the ideal choice for businesses that need a constant and consistent internet connection. It is also scalable so you can upgrade your bandwidth quickly to meet your businesses needs.

Scalability

Unlike broadband, which can often suffer from a drop-out of the connection (which for households is not particularly significant but can impact upon productivity through lost data and missed online calls), leased lines offer a superior level of service with a clear SLA. This is important for businesses that rely on internet-dependent services such as collaboration platforms and cloud-based telephony and software applications.

Leased lines are synchronous, so upload and download speeds match which is ideal for businesses that use services such as video calling and VoIP telephony. They also allow for greater scalability as your business needs change, so you can simply increase your bandwidth to keep up with demand.

Speeds start at around 20Mbps and go right up to 100Mbps on the newest bearer options.

Security

A leased line is a dedicated connection to your ISP, which means you are not sharing bandwidth with other users of the same service provider as you would with standard broadband. This gives you greater security as a business and also guarantees speeds and a clear SLA.

Leased lines are also symmetrical, which means that upload and download speeds are the same (as opposed to broadband which is often asymmetric). This makes a leased line perfect for businesses using cloud technologies or video conference calls as there will be less chance of the link dropping out.

A leased line also has a very high SLA, meaning if the link does drop out you can expect a quick fix from your provider. This is much faster than the best SLAs offered on broadband connections.