Is the internet fast enough yet? For many of us, our broadband speeds are satisfactory. Our needs are met, our patience isn’t tested. For some organizations however, the limitations of broadband, even superfast business broadband, remain a frustration.

In 2019, the internet is long past the early adoption phase and well into maturity. There are young people entering the workforce who may not even remember the days before the internet. Some might not even remember dial-up connections!

Perhaps those that remember the dial-up days can’t bring themselves to feel discontented with being able to stream 4k video without any buffering. But this could lead them to miss the potential opportunities an even faster connection would create for their business. For these people, a leased line offers a huge upgrade on any broadband service.

The opportunities

With greater bandwidth comes more opportunity. As companies know that their users can download more, they provide more. A few years ago Facebook wasn’t autoloading videos as you scrolled through your timeline. As bandwidth increases, however, Facebook know that they can provide this service without slow connections ruining the experience – at least in most cases.

The same goes for business to business providers, in particular – cloud services. Ten years ago the cloud sounded like an overhyped means to back up your data. Now it’s an essential part of most businesses, providing many different services. There are huge advantages to ditching traditional infrastructure and taking advantage of cloud-based infrastructure – presuming you have a fast and reliable connection.

Regardless of the size of your company, it can be advantageous to use another company’s infrastructure to deliver your service. Even the likes of Netflix and Expedia use Amazon Web Services.

Of course, moving your data out of your own premises and into another business’ servers puts a huge amount of importance on the connection between them.

What is a leased line?

A leased-line is your own private internet connection. You can use this line to connect various parts of your own infrastructure, such as between an office and a data center. You could also have a leased line between your infrastructure and your local internet exchange.

This is in comparison to broadband, which is shared by numerous users. Broadband has improved greatly over the years, benefiting from investment by the UK government. More than 95% of the country now has access to superfast broadband as of the start of 2018.

But what is superfast? Superfast only guarantees speeds of more than 24Mbp/s. Ultrafast broadband with speeds greater than 100Mbp/s are only available to just over half of the UK. Speeds of up to 330Mbp/s are possible if you are able to access Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) services.

Leased lines can provide speeds of up to 100 Gbp/s. Mic drop.

Furthermore, there is no imbalance between upload and download speeds. Broadband typically skews the balance towards downloads, as most users will be primarily downloading content from the internet rather than uploading. If your business hosts content for your users to download, that won’t be the case for you however. Leased lines are symmetric, meaning your upload speed is the same as your download.

Your own dedicated line will be more reliable than sharing a broadband connection with the rest of the city. There won’t be any need to worry about the speed you will get at peak time.

How to choose a leased line provider?

There are various factors involved in choosing a leased line provider. Here are a few things to consider:
Installation time

Unfortunately, a leased line can’t be installed overnight. Hooking your business up to the network will take time, and that can be anywhere from 30 to 90 days. If you’ve come to the conclusion that your company needs a leased line, you obviously wouldn’t want to continue with your current connection for a quarter of a year. Patience can be a virtue, and the best firm may be worth waiting for if they score highly on other factors.

Customer service

Your internet connection is an external part of your business that you can’t directly control. Whenever you don’t have control over a part of your business, make sure whoever you are dealing with has excellent customer service. If you can’t deal with problems directly yourself, you are going to want the best support possible.

Cost

There are many contributing factors to the costs of leased lines, including distance and speed. As a result, the prices vary wildly between the various providers. Bear in mind, the cheapest provider at a certain speed may not be the cheapest provider if you upgrade your speed in the future.

If you’re convinced that a faster, more reliable internet connection will help take your business to the next level, it’s time to start getting quotes for leased lines. Broadband will feel like dial up in comparison.