We examine the factors behind the dramatic fall in the cost of lease lines, from advances in hardware manufacturing, to the introduction of Ethernet in the First Mile. We look at how growing broadband penetration has helped push down lease line prices, and how all these changes have created a virtuous circle of increasing affordability and demand.

Lease lines can provide your business with the fast, reliable connection it deserves. But how do you pick the right one? There are five key things to consider...

Cost of your Lease Line

Lease Lines cost thousands of pounds per year, and the price can vary greatly between different suppliers. This is because some only get quotes from their preferred carrier, whereas others are free to get quotes from multiple carriers, picking the best value option.

Your lease line will cost you over £10,000 over the life of your contract, so it's important to choose your supplier carefully. Here are some factors to ensure you get the right deal:

Will your business be moving over the next three years?

The best lease line pricing is reserved for companies that sign three to five year contracts. If you can sign a contract of that length, you're likely to get significantly better pricing than if you sign up for one or two years.

Is your bandwidth usage growing rapidly?

A lease line is a symmetric data connection between two points. As the name suggests, you lease it rather than buy it. Many providers will charge you an installation fee for installing the connection, and providing you with the necessary hardware.

Lease lines are used almost exclusively by organisations. Seldom do individuals buy them. The reason is that they're a LOT more expensive than ADSL connections, as they actually deliver what they promise.

Go to many any ADSL provider and they'll over 'Up to 20Mbps' broadband. What they DON'T tell you is that…

A lease line connection is a point-to-point symmetric data link that's reserved solely for use by your company.

The link may be used to connect your office to the Internet or to connect it to another office.

Lease line connections are popular with businesses, as they are highly reliable, they offer predictable connection speeds, they're backed by Service Level Agreements and they have no data transfer limits.

They're available in a wide range of speeds. For example, you're not stuck with 'up to 20Mbps'. You can get 100Mb, 1000Mb and even 10,000Mb connection speeds.