What Are the Advantages of Using a Leased Line?

Businesses rely on internet connections for everything from online collaboration platforms to hosting data analytics and business intelligence tools. While broadband is fine for the home user, a slow connection can have a detrimental impact on businesses; leading to a loss in productivity and costing money through impacted team efficiencies and customer service.

Unrestricted Data Caps

For business that rely on quick and reliable data exchange, leased lines are one of the fastest forms of internet connectivity. Unlike broadband connections, which are ‘contended’ a leased line is always available at full speed, with no limits on data transfer as long as you’ve signed up to a suitable contract.

As a result, leased lines are great for businesses who want to avoid restrictions on data usage, especially those who use bandwidth-intensive software programmes. Plus, a leased line offers symmetrical download and upload speeds, ideal for businesses who operate online stores or need to support customers remotely. They also come with a service level agreement, which isn’t offered by standard broadband connections. This guarantees a set speed and a fix time for any issues.

High Bandwidth Capabilities

When you take out a business leased line, you get unlimited bandwidth for your connection. This is ideal for businesses that transfer large files regularly or use intensive software programmes, such as video calling and VoIP telephony.

What’s more, leased lines are synchronous meaning you can enjoy the same speed for downloads and uploads, something you don’t always get with broadband. This is vital for businesses that work with large file sizes and reduces the amount of time that a file takes to send – increasing productivity in the process.

With a leased line, you also won’t be sharing the network with other users as standard broadband does. This means you won’t experience congestion issues at peak times, ensuring your business can operate without interruption.

High Reliability

Businesses that rely heavily on internet-powered technology like video conferencing and cloud-based applications require a reliable connection. It can be devastating for a business to lose their internet connection for a prolonged period of time, impacting on team efficiencies and customer service levels.

A leased line provides a dedicated bandwidth to your business with symmetrical upload and download speeds, meaning peak usage doesn’t affect performance. The service is also monitored and supported by a service level agreement (SLA) that promises uptime and reliability.

This gives you peace of mind that you’re always getting the fastest and most secure connections available. You can also upgrade the speed of your leased line as your business grows, giving you flexibility to scale up or down.

High Speeds

While leased lines do come at a slightly higher cost than other connectivity solutions, their reliability and scalability offers businesses peace of mind. With a leased line, your business will receive a dedicated and secure connection, which enables you to deliver a seamless and uninterrupted experience for your customers.

This is due to the synchronous connection that allows for equal upload and download speeds. Domestic internet services often suffer from a poorer upload speed than download, which can be frustrating for businesses that use cloud-based applications or high bandwidth communication (such as video conferencing) on a regular basis.

Also, unlike other connections that are capped during peak times, a leased line will have no congestion meaning your speeds remain consistent. Depending on the bearer you choose, you can get up to 1Gbps speeds.

Flexibility

Unlike a broadband line which is asymmetric and will only ever give you maximum download speeds a leased line is symmetric and offers up to 10Gbps internet connectivity. This means you can upload and download large amounts of data simultaneously without impacting upon speed, which is great for businesses that deal with sensitive client information such as those in the financial services industry or those who rely on complex software as a service (SaaS) and e-commerce solutions.

Leased lines also offer a guaranteed uptime, meaning your business can still operate even during a prolonged internet outage, which is important to organisations that rely on cloud access and remote working for daily operations. Check that your provider will offer this when you’re choosing your leased line package.