Internet Leased Line Guide - Everything You Want To Know

An Internet leased line provides fast dedicated symmetric unmetered connectivity, typically for an office full of people, a school or a data centre.

Dedicated means your line will have its full bandwidth reserved for your use at all times, all the way from your site to your internet service provider's core network. You won't need to share any of the available bandwidth with your internet leased line provider's other customers. This means that your connection won't slow down at peak times, like broadband does.

Symmetric means that your internet leased line speed will be the same in both directions - the upstream connection speed will match the downstream connection speed. You'll be able to upload stuff more easily than you would if you had a broadband connection.

Leased lines are designed for businesses, so they tend to come with a Service Level Agreement and 24/7 support.

Cost Considerations

Compared to your broadband connection, your internet leased line cost a lot more to install and support. That's reflected in a higher price tariff.

Luckily, connectivity costs have been falling as fibre-optic-related networking equipment has fallen in price, and infrastructure-level and wholesale-level competition increases (at least in the UK).

Given the falling market prices, it's important to compare wholesale prices to find the right deal for each location. That's what we do, using our suppliers' APIs. To get a quote for your UK location, just use the tool at the top of this page.

Why do people buy internet leased lines? Well, generally individuals don't buy them. Businesses do. Leased lines are beyond the budget of most individuals, with the exceptions of financial traders, successful YouTubers and IT-focused sole traders.

Your Options

Connection Speeds - 2 Mbit/s to 10 Gbit/s (10,000 Mbit/s) in theory. Commercially, 10 Mbit/s to 1 Gbps is more common, in particular: 10 Mbit/s, 20 Mbit/s, 50 Mbit/s, 100 Mbit/s, 200 Mbit/s, 300 Mbit/s, 1 Gbit/s. 

Contract Lengths - 3 years is common. Contracts tend to last a whole number of years from 1 to 5. 

Resilience Options - From no backup connection at all (common, but not smart), to FTTC broadband, EoFTTC, EFM and fibre leased line circuits

Routers - Managed Router (provided by your ISP), or your own router (your ISP just provides what is known as a 'wires only' service)

What is an Internet Leased Line Used For?

Typically, they are used for...

• Standard web surfing - e.g. for accessing suppliers web sites, search engines, watching online videos
• Sending and receiving emails
• Carrying VoIP calls
• Downloading software updates - including operating system updates, virus definition updates, application updates (e.g. for Microsoft Office)
• Connecting a given site to the rest of an organisation's wide area network (WAN)
• Allowing remote-access to the site's on-premise IT resources via a Virtual Private Network (VPN)

Sometimes, MPLS or SD-WAN equipment is used to help prioritise traffic flowing over the available links - with a view to minimising the impact of any network congestion or latency.

How is pricing calculated?

As of 2019, internet leased line tariffs tend not to be nationwide. Instead, they tend to be highly dependent on your specific location. Addresses within the same postcode area may be subject to different prices!

Your supplier will seek quotes from wholesale suppliers known as 'carriers'. This provide basic internet-less layer 2 connectivity between two points - your site, and your provider's network.

Your internet leased line provider is responsible for adding the Internet access, project-managing the installation of your service, providing you with support and billing you. Typically, they will also be responsible for monitoring your service, and for buying, configuring and shipping a router to you.

They may also provide an element of financing, swallowing a chunk of the circuit installation charges, then recouping them over the life of the contract.

Your internet leased line service provider will calculate a cost based on the raw connectivity cost it has to pay (the largest cost element, bar none), the cost of supplying support, the cost of buying hardware for your site and their own core network, and the cost of selling the service to you.

Key factors wil be how much bandwidth you need, how long the contract is, and how expensive it will be to physically connect your site to nearby network assets.

To request a custom quote for an internet leased line to your location use the pricing tool at the top of this page.