What is a leased line?

A leased line refers to a dedicated connection that allows for communication between two sites (a point-to-point leased line) or between a site and the Internet (an internet leased line). Leased lines typically deliver bandwidth over a leased fibre connection, although copper local tails can sometimes be used as well.

Leased lines are considered a premium connectivity product because unlike various broadband services leased lines are dedicated, uncontended data lines with symmetrical bandwidth speeds. With dedicated lines users can get higher speeds of service and a higher service level guarantee.

Leased line connection speeds can range from 64 kilobits per second (Kbit/s) to 10 gigabits per second (Gbit/s). Leased lines are used by companies to obtain a faster, more reliable Internet or site-to-site connection. The amount of bandwidth purchased on the leased line is determined by the amount of data used, the number of users accessing the line, and the number of applications running at any given time.

Beyond the higher bandwidths, leased lines provide better security and privacy over other telecom connections because they are used exclusively by the company purchasing them.

What is hSo:compare and how does it work?

This site is an online leased line quote request tool, based on our real-time carrier pricing tool.

The pricing is an end-to-end leased line price, meaning it includes the carrier local tail, the core network bandwidth and implementation costs. The services include managed, on-site equipment providing an Ethernet handover at each site.

hSo:compare pricing is based on wholesale pricing from the leading UK carriers and is accurate to the location provided, at the time of the quote. We get the best leased line costs available at each location.

Leased lines – what are the options and benefits?

Your options for leased lines are:

Single Site, Internet - simply using a leased line to connect an office to the internet.

Multi-site Connectivity - sometimes referred to as WAN (Wide Area Network), involves using leased lines to connect various company offices so that data can be shared across the offices.

Resilience - a single site can be served by multiple leased lines using different fibre routes to increase the availability of the services (there are less chances that both leased lines become faulty at the same time).

The benefits of using leased lines are:

More Bandwidth - leased lines can deliver from 2Mbit/s to 1,000Mbit/s of connectivity to most UK businesses, and up to 10Gbit/s in some urban locations.

Consistent Speeds - your bandwidth is reserved exclusively for your use, so you can experience a consistently high data throughput at all times - even during peak usage periods.

Faster Upload Speeds - leased lines are symmetrical, meaning you get the same high speed upstream as you get downstream. This is ideal for VoIP, terminal services, online data backup, video conferencing, server hosting and the sending of large files.

Unlimited Data Transfer - you can use your connection flat out, all the time. You can do whatever you like with it (subject to the law). There are no extra charges if you go over some arbitrary monthly usage quota. No-one's going to slow down your connection if you exceed an unspecified 'fair usage' limit. And no-one's going to throttle particular types of traffic on your connection.

Business-class Support - you won't have to sit in a queue for 40 minutes being told by a recorded message that 'your call is important.' Instead, you should receive responsive, proactive support 24x7 from technically-knowledgeable professionals.

hSo Leased Line Features

Feature Description
Pricing Our pricing is based on best prices from fibre providers in your area, calculated in real time - guaranteeing a competitive price.
Bandwidth options Full flexibility on bearer and committed data rate - 2Mbit/s, 4Mbit/s, 8Mbit/s, 10Mbit/s, 20Mbit/s, 50Mbit/s, 100Mbit/s, 200Mbit/s, 300Mbit/s, 1Gbit/s and other rates.
Contract term 1, 3 or 5 year contracts typically but options to match contract term to your requirement (e.g. office lease). Long term contracts can come with free connection.
Service Level Agreement (SLA) Targets 100% availability. Service credits for failing to meet SLA service commitments.
Router Managed router included with options for high availability architecture.
24/7 support Our UK based network operations centre provides technical support 365 days.
Proactive monitoring All network devices are pro-actively monitored by our network operations centre to identify leased line issues even before they happen.
Domain Domain transfer included with leased lines.
IP addresses 1 static (public) included. Additional IP addresses need to be justified and may incur a charge.
IPv6 hSo is committed to IPv6 roll out meaning you will not run out of IP addresses or get stuck in a transition period.
Resilience options Carrier independent approach means we can engineer highly resilient solutions and building in automatic failover using technologies such as Ethernet, EFM, DSL and 3G wireless.
Cloud options Your leased lines can provide you access to Cloud platforms and data centre services, so you can make the most out of your leased line with access to online storage, IP telephony and more.

hSo Leased Lines Tech Specifications

Specification Description
Bearer speed Options on bearers - 2Mbit/s, EFM, 10Mbit/s, 100Mbit/s, 1Gbit/s, and 10Gbit/s.
Circuit technology available Fibre and copper leased lines running Ethernet. We can also provide EFM and DSL connected to your WAN using MPLS/VPLS.
Service contention All leased lines are uncontended. You have full access to all bandwidth.
Usage limits None. Use the leased line as much as you need to.
Latency, packet loss and jitter To guarantee advanced IP services, such as IP telephony on your leased lines, hSo makes services commitment on latency, packet loss and jitter - all well below industry standards for maintaining service quality.
 
 

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