A leased line is an internet connection reserved for one business. Nobody else shares it, it runs at the same speed in both directions, and if it fails the carrier is contracted to fix it within an agreed time. You will also hear it called direct internet access, DIA, a dedicated line or an Ethernet leased line. They all mean the same thing.
The name is older than the internet. Businesses used to lease a private circuit between two of their own buildings. Today a leased line almost always means a dedicated fibre connection from your building to the internet.
How a leased line differs from broadband
Broadband, even full fibre, shares capacity with other users in your area, downloads much faster than it uploads, and is repaired when the carrier gets to it. A leased line changes all three.
| Business broadband | Leased line | |
|---|---|---|
| Who shares it | Other users in your area | Nobody: the circuit is yours |
| Upload speed | Much slower than download | The same as download |
| If it fails | Repaired on a best-effort basis | A contracted fix time |
| Speeds we supply | Up to 1,600 Mbps download on full fibre | From tens of Mbps up to 10 Gbps, both ways |
| Time to install | 10 to 15 working days | 60 to 90 working days |
| Monthly cost | Lower | From £175 a month, excluding VAT |
The broadband figure is Openreach’s published maximum for full fibre (Openreach); what an address gets depends on the package and the line.
How fast is a leased line?
You choose the bandwidth. We supply leased lines from tens of megabits up to 10 Gbps on our own network, and the speed you buy is the speed you get at 9am on a Monday and 3pm on a Friday, because nobody else is on the circuit.
Upload matters as much as download on a leased line, because they are the same. A 100 Mbps leased line sends at 100 Mbps, which is what makes it suit cloud backups, large files going out to clients, video calls all day and anything your customers connect to.
The circuit is usually installed with more capacity than you order, so bandwidth can be increased later without a new installation. Size it for today with room to grow.
What does a leased line cost?
Ours start from £175 a month, excluding VAT, on a fixed-term contract. Three things move the price: the bandwidth you order, the carrier that can reach your address, and the route the fibre takes into the building. Installation is quoted per site after a survey. Where a new duct or pole is needed, the carrier’s excess construction charges are quoted to you before you commit.
A leased line costs more than broadband, so compare what an hour without internet costs you against the difference in the monthly charge. Our article on when a leased line pays for itself works through that sum.
How long does a leased line take to install?
Usually 60 to 90 working days from order to a live circuit. The carrier surveys the route, may need to lay new fibre or dig to reach the building, and sometimes needs the landlord’s permission to run it through the premises. Civil works and permits are what stretch the longer installations.
Order it well before the connection you have now runs out or the office move happens. If you are replacing broadband, the old line stays up until the new circuit is tested and handed over.
Do you need a leased line?
The signs that a business has outgrown broadband:
- Everything runs in the cloud: Microsoft 365, the accounts package, the CRM and the phones all depend on the connection.
- Calls break up at busy times, when the whole street is online.
- Uploads tie the connection up for everyone: drawings, video, backups going off site.
- A day without internet would stop the business, and best-effort repair is a gamble you would rather not take.
Work out the cost of an hour offline: the people affected, their hourly cost, the hours you could be down, plus the sales or service you could not deliver. 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 broadband with a 4G or 5G backup is often the right answer, and we will say so.
A leased line on our own network
Our leased lines run over a core network we own and operate, AS204558, with our own equipment in Telehouse North Two in London Docklands and Equinix MA3 in Manchester, peering at the London Internet Exchange in both cities. The carrier brings the fibre to the building; our own engineers install and configure the managed router, bring the connection onto our network and test it end to end. Faults are monitored and chased from our service desk in Stockton-on-Tees, where a person answers within three rings.
We install leased lines for businesses across the North East, including Stockton, Middlesbrough, Darlington and Durham. Ask for a proposal on our leased lines page, or call us on 01642 661888.