Connectivity
Leased lines and direct internet access
A dedicated internet connection for your business alone: the bandwidth you buy is the bandwidth you get, up and down, at any time of day, with a contracted fix time if it fails.
Who it is for
Businesses in Teesside and the North East whose work stops when the internet does: Microsoft 365, hosted phones, the accounts package, card payments and video calls all on one connection, with enough people on it that a slow afternoon or a day's outage costs real money. Typically a main office, a depot or a site that hosts something customers connect to.
What you get
A leased line, which we call direct internet access, delivered over our own business-only core network and installed and supported by our own engineers. Dedicated bandwidth from tens of megabits up to 10 Gbps, the same speed both ways, a router we supply and monitor, and a fault handled by the people who run the network it sits on.
The problem
Broadband shares its capacity with other users, so speed varies at the busiest times. When your business depends on cloud applications, calls and video every minute of the day, that variation costs you.
Full fibre broadband has made fast connections cheap. The differences that remain are what happens at 9am on a Monday when the whole street is online, how fast you can send data out as well as pull it in, and what happens when the line breaks. Broadband is asymmetric, so uploads crawl while downloads fly; a day of drawings, video or cloud backups going out ties the connection up for everyone. Broadband faults are repaired on a best-effort basis, and a repair that needs a road dug up can take days.
The useful sum is what an hour without internet costs you: the people affected, their hourly cost, the hours you could be down, plus the sales or service you cannot deliver in that time. For many businesses with ten or more people on cloud systems, one long outage a year costs more than the difference between broadband and a leased line. For a small office that can work from mobiles for a morning, full fibre with a 4G or 5G backup is often the right answer, and we will say so.
A leased line is dedicated, symmetric and covered by a contracted fix time. Ours runs over a core network we own and operate, so when something goes wrong you are talking to the engineers who can fix it, not a reseller passing on a ticket.
What Odyssey provides
- A dedicated connection, not shared with other users, with guaranteed bandwidth at any time of day
- The same upload and download speed, for cloud backups, large files, video calls and anything customers connect to
- Bandwidth from tens of megabits up to 10 Gbps, increased later without changing the connection
- A contracted fix time for faults, rather than best-effort repair
- Traffic carried on our own business-only core network, AS204558, peering at LINX in London and Manchester
- Survey, installation, a managed router and support from our own engineers in Stockton-on-Tees
What is included
| Included | Detail |
|---|---|
| Survey and design | A site survey, an availability check for your address and the right bandwidth for how many people and applications rely on the connection |
| Dedicated circuit | Uncontended, symmetric bandwidth at the speed you order, carried over our own core network to our points of presence in Manchester and London Docklands |
| Managed router | Supplied, configured and monitored by us, with changes made by our service desk |
| Service level | A contracted fix time for faults, committed by the carrier that provides the line (such as BT or Virgin Media) |
| Monitoring and faults | The circuit watched by the engineers who run the network, faults raised with the carrier and managed through to repair by our Stockton-on-Tees team |
| Bandwidth changes | Capacity increased on the same connection as your needs grow |
Not included, or sold separately
- Backup connectivity
- A 4G or 5G backup that takes over automatically if the line fails is a separate service, and we recommend one for any business that cannot work without the internet
- Cabling and Wi-Fi inside the building
- From the router onwards is networking and cabling, a separate service installed by the same engineers
- A firewall
- The router routes; threat detection, intrusion prevention and content filtering are provided by a hosted firewall, a separate service
- Joining several sites privately
- Traffic between your sites stays off the public internet on an MPLS private WAN or SD-WAN, a separate service that a leased line can carry
- Civil works
- Where a new duct or pole is needed, the carrier's excess construction charges are quoted to you after the survey, never absorbed silently into the monthly charge
How it is delivered
-
Check what your address can get
Availability varies street by street. We check what can be delivered to your address, by which carriers and over which route, before anything is ordered, and tell you if full fibre broadband with a backup would serve you as well for less.
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Size the bandwidth
How many people and applications rely on the connection, what you send out as well as pull in, and what you expect to add. A leased line is sized for today with room to increase on the same circuit.
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Survey and order
A site survey confirms the route into the building and the equipment room; any excess construction charges are quoted before you commit. The circuit is then ordered with the carrier: usually 30 to 90 working days to a live circuit, depending on the carrier and any civil works.
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Install and test
The carrier brings the circuit to the building; our engineers install and configure the managed router, bring the connection onto our core network and test it end to end. If you are replacing broadband, the old line stays up until the new one is proven.
-
Monitor and support
The circuit is monitored from Stockton-on-Tees. Report a fault and a person answers within three rings; we raise it with the carrier, manage it to repair and keep you informed. Changes to the router are made by our service desk.
Why trust Odyssey with this
-
In-house
All work completed by Odyssey employees, never subcontracted
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3
Calls answered within three rings, and a director is always reachable
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ISO
ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 certified by NQA
- Delivered over our own business-only core network, AS204558, announcing our own routes since 2018
Questions people ask
Is a leased line the same as direct internet access?
Yes. Direct internet access is the term we use for a leased line, a dedicated internet circuit for your business alone, with guaranteed bandwidth and a contracted fix time. Ethernet and microwave links are the related point-to-point products for joining your own buildings.
What is the difference between a leased line and full fibre broadband?
Full fibre broadband shares capacity with other users, is faster to download than to upload, and is repaired on a best-effort basis. A leased line is yours alone, the same speed both ways, and covered by a contracted fix time. Broadband is right for many small offices; a leased line is right when the business cannot work without the connection.
How fast can it be?
Bandwidth is available from tens of megabits up to 10 Gbps, with the same upload and download speed at any time of day. We size it with you, and it can be increased later on the same circuit.
What happens if the line fails?
You call us, a person answers within three rings, and the fault is raised with the carrier and managed to repair by the engineers who run the network. The contracted fix time is in your agreement. For a business that cannot be offline at all we recommend a 4G or 5G backup that takes over automatically.
Does the connection run on your own network?
Yes. Odyssey runs its own autonomous system, AS204558, with equipment in Telehouse North Two in London Docklands and Equinix MA3 in Manchester, peering at the London Internet Exchange in both cities and with Colt and Cogent for transit. The network carries business traffic only.
Can the same line carry our phones?
Yes. A dedicated, symmetric connection suits hosted telephony and video calls, which are sensitive to congestion, and on a private WAN we can prioritise calls over other traffic.
Do we need a leased line at every site?
No. Each site gets the connection that suits it: a leased line where the site is business-critical, business broadband where it is not, ethernet or microwave between buildings you own, and a private WAN to join them. We will tell you which, and often it is a mix.
How is it priced?
A fixed monthly charge by bandwidth on a fixed-term contract, with installation quoted per site after the survey. We do not publish prices because the right bandwidth and route differ by address; ask for a proposal and we will quote the options for your site.
Challenges this helps with
Related services
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