Leased line advantages: when dedicated internet is worth the money
Symmetrical speed, uncontended bandwidth and a contracted fix time. The advantages that matter, and the businesses that do not need them.
By the Telappliant team
A leased line is a dedicated circuit between your premises and the network, reserved entirely for you. It costs more than broadband, and for a lot of businesses it is worth it for reasons that have little to do with raw speed.
Symmetrical speed
Upload matches download. That single property fixes most of the complaints businesses have about their connection: video calls that hold up with thirty people dialled in, cloud backups that finish overnight, remote desktops that feel local, and large file transfers that do not stall the office.
Uncontended bandwidth
Broadband is shared. A leased line is not, so the speed you buy is the speed you get at 9am on Monday and at 4pm on a Friday in December. Predictability is the point: you can size the circuit once and trust it.
A service level you can hold someone to
- A contracted target fix time, typically measured in hours rather than days
- Proactive monitoring, so the provider often knows before you do
- Service credits when the target is missed
- A defined escalation path rather than a consumer helpdesk
Room to grow without another install
Most leased lines are delivered on a bearer larger than the speed you buy, commonly a 1Gbps bearer carrying a 100 or 200Mbps service. Increasing the speed later is usually a configuration change and a new price, not a new installation and another set of civils.
The honest disadvantages
- Higher monthly cost than any broadband product
- Longer lead times, typically 45 to 90 working days, longer where civil works are required
- Possible excess construction charges at hard-to-reach addresses
- Overkill for a small team doing email, browsing and a handful of calls
Who should buy one
Sites that trade over the connection: contact centres, e-commerce operations, professional services running client-facing systems, anyone hosting on site, multi-site businesses backhauling traffic, and any organisation whose customer contract commits it to availability. If a day offline is measured in lost revenue rather than lost patience, the maths is straightforward.
Getting the resilience right
A leased line is one circuit. If it is genuinely critical, add a diverse second path, ideally on different infrastructure, and configure automatic failover. Buying a premium circuit and no backup protects you against everything except the thing that actually takes it out.
Next steps
Frequently asked questions
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