Leaseline Buyer’s Guide

A leaseline is a symmetric dedicated data connection between two points.

What is a Leasedline Used For?

Businesses often use a leaseline to connect their offices to the Internet.

Organisations with several offices may use leaselines to link their offices together, so they can transfer data between each other, and share a central pool of servers, SANs and other IT infrastructure.

How much bandwidth can a leaseline provide?

Popular leaseline speeds include 2Mbit/s, 10Mbit/s and 100Mbit/s. Typically, these connections carry Internet traffic, wide-area-network traffic and VoIP phone calls.

In a few rare cases companies get a 1Gbit/s or 10Gbit/s leaseline, to link data centres used by the firm, or to provide enough bandwidth to enable one of the sites to be used for hosting.

Can a leaseline save me money?

If you have ISDN30 circuits, you may be able to recoup part of the cost of your leaseline by switching to SIP Trunking.

SIP Trunking sends your phone calls over your leaseline. This reduces line rental costs because bit for bit, leaseline data circuits are far cheaper than ISDN30 circuits.

It's a more scalable solution too, as leased lines come in 2Mbit/s, 10Mbit/s, 100Mbit/s and 1Gbit/s versions, whereas ISDN30 only comes in a 2Mbps version. So a medium-capacity leased line can carry far more calls then a high-capacity ISDN circuit.

How long a contract will I have to sign?

Most leaseline contracts run for 3 years or 5 years.

1 year contracts are available, but they're a lot more expensive, as the leaseline provider needs to recoup their installation costs at 3 to 5 times the usual speed. They do this by charging a hefty installation fee, adding hundreds to the monthly bill, or by doing both!

What if I need more bandwidth and need to upgrade mid-way through my contract?

Most leaseline providers are happy to let you do this.

The usual way this works is that you sign a new multi-year contract for the higher bandwidth connection, and your leaseline provider signs a similar multi-year contract with the 'carrier' who supplies your current circuit.

What if my company decides to move offices, mid-way through my contract?

Most leaseline providers are pragmatic.

If you're moving a short distance, you may just have to pay a one-off fee for shifting the circuit.

If you're moving a substantial distance, the monthly price of the leaseline might also change.

The only time when moving is problematic is when the 'carrier' at the old office can't provide services at the new office. This rarely happens. But when it does, your leaseline provider is forced to continue to pay for the circuit to the old office, long after you've moved out. Or they're forced to pay a hefty fee to terminate that circuit early.