Leased Line Bandwidth – The Speeds Available and How They’re Delivered

Leased lines offer fixed bandwidth connections between two sites. What bandwidths can you choose? 2Mbit/s to 10Gbit/s, typically.

Here's how each of those speeds are delivered:

10Gbit/s and 1Gbit/s of leased line bandwidth

These are delivered using fibre-optic cable. These speeds are available within a 35km distance of the UK cable networks. As the largest cable network covers over half the country, most areas of the UK are within 35km of one or more cable networks. There are some areas of Scotland and Wales that would have problems getting 1Gbit/s or 10Gbit/s.

20Mbit/s and 100Mbit/s of leased line bandwidth

Fibre would have to be used, but the distance limit is reduced to 25km.

10Mbit/s of leased line bandwidth

In most areas of the country, fibre would probably be used. But in a few areas of the country, there are other options:

BT Wholesale EFM (Copper) – Some addresses served by those 1100 of the UK's 5600 telephone exchanges can get this. Whether you can get it depends on your distance from the exchange, and the availability of spare phone lines.

BT Openreach's FTTC offering - This is fibre-optic cable to those green junction boxes in the street, then VDSL from there to your office. This is only available outside about 1.5m premises at the time of writing.

Wimax – In a really small number of locations, a fixed bandwidth wimax service is available. Each site requires equipment be installed on its roof or the side of its building. Each site needs a direct line of sight to your providers link. If you haven't already received marketing material from a Wimax provider, you probably can't get it.

2Mbit/s of leased line bandwidth

This can be provided by any of the above options. There are also a large number of additional options:

BT Wholesale SDSL – This is available at 898 of the UK's 5600 of the UK's telephone exchanges. However not all addresses in a given exchange area can get 2Mbit/s.

BT Wholesale MBC ADSL2+Annex - These are available at 859 of the UK's 5600 telephone exchanges, at the time of writing. Not all addresses within those exchanges can get 2Mbit/s.

Local Loop Unbundler SDSL, Local Loop Unbundler ADSL2+Annex M - A number of providers rent phone lines from BT Openreach, then run SDSL or ADSL2+ services over them. These services are available at about one in four telephone exchanges. Sky/Easynet has unbundled 1275 exchanges, O2/Be has unbundled 1247, Tiscali has unbundled 946 and Cable & Wireless has unbundled 802. Not all addresses at those exchanges can get 2Mbit/s.