Fibre Broadband vs Leased Lines

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Broadband Voucher Scheme

The UK Government has launched the Broadband Connection Voucher scheme. This programme offers grants of up to £3,000 for small to medium enterprises. The grant covers installation costs to deliver a higher speed Internet connection, and can be used for both leased lines and fibre broadband.

The Cost of a Leased Line

A question we get asked a lot is why is there such a large price difference between fibre broadband and leased lines?  People see the costs of an up to 80Mbps fibre broadband service and compare this to a 10Mbps leased line service, for example, and wonder why a ‘slower’ leased line service would cost more.

 

It’s worth remembering that we aren’t really comparing apples with apples.  That fibre broadband ‘up to’ speed isn’t a guarantee; it’s an estimate of what you’ll get in the best case scenario.  A leased line speed delivers what it says it’s going to deliver, 50Mbps is 50Mbps 24 hours a day seven days a week.  The cost of a leased line is based on four factors:

 


Leased Lines, the Questions to Ask

There are three big questions to ask when deciding which service to opt for.

 


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Leased Line vs. Fibre Broadband:  Conclusion

To compare these two services isn’t really valid.  Both services have very different aims.  If you have a larger number of users, or if your organisation will lose revenue if it loses the connection a leased line could be for you.

 

Another thing to consider is what else you can do with a leased line, to increase its utility.  We often provide leased lines with bandwidth segmented to run other applications that don’t need access to the web.  Remote real time backup and SIP trunks are two examples.   Your leased line is then helping the organisation function better as well as providing high bandwidth internet access.

 

To finish off, if you are looking for a leased line connection, here are some good questions to ask your potential supplier.

 


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