Leased line or business broadband: which does your office need?

Every business needs a reliable internet connection, but not every business needs the same kind. For most offices the choice comes down to two options: business broadband, usually full fibre these days, or a leased line. They can look similar on paper, but they work very differently, and picking the wrong one costs you either money or reliability.

This guide explains the difference in plain English and how to work out which one your office needs.

What business broadband gives you

Business broadband runs over the same network as home broadband, with a business-grade contract on top. Full fibre (FTTP) has made it much faster than it used to be, and for many small offices it’s more than enough.

Three things are worth knowing:

• It’s shared. Your connection shares capacity with other users in the area, so speeds can dip at busy times.
• Upload is usually slower than download. That matters if you make lots of video calls, back up to the cloud or send large files.
• Repairs are “best effort”. Business packages often promise faster fixes than home broadband, but if the line fails you could still be waiting a day or more.

What a leased line gives you

A leased line is a private, dedicated connection from your building to your provider’s network. Nobody else shares it.

• Guaranteed speed, all day. You get the bandwidth you pay for, whatever time it is.
• Upload matches download. A 500 Mbps leased line is 500 Mbps in both directions.
• Fix times written into the contract. Leased lines come with a service level agreement, and repair targets are usually measured in hours, not days.

The trade-offs are cost and time. A leased line costs more each month, and installation can take several weeks to a few months, especially if new cabling or roadworks are needed. Plan ahead if you’re moving office.

Which one does your office need?

Business broadband is usually the right choice if:

• you have a small team, roughly up to 10–15 people;
• an hour or two offline would be annoying rather than costly;
• your work is mostly email, web apps and the odd video call.

A leased line starts to make sense if:

• a lot of people rely on the connection at once, or you run a shared or serviced office building;
• you depend on cloud systems, hosted phones and video calls all day;
• you upload a lot, such as large design files, video or off-site backups;
• downtime costs you real money, or your tenants or customers expect the connection to just work.

Don’t forget a backup connection

Whichever you choose, a single connection is a single point of failure. A second line from a different provider, or a 4G/5G backup, can take over automatically if the main line drops. For many offices, good broadband with a backup connection is better value than a leased line on its own. For buildings with lots of users, a leased line with a broadband or 5G backup is the safest setup.

It’s also worth checking what your phones run on. With the old copper phone network being switched off, more phone systems now depend on your internet connection, which makes reliability even more important. Our PSTN switch-off checklist covers what to look out for.

Questions to ask before you sign

1. What speed is guaranteed, and is upload the same as download?
2. What is the repair target if the line fails, and what happens if it’s missed?
3. How long will installation take at our address?
4. Can the connection fail over to a backup automatically?
5. How long is the contract, and what does it cost to leave early?

How we can help

We arrange and manage business broadband, leased lines and backup connections for offices, serviced office buildings and venues across London and Hertfordshire, and set up the network behind them. See our networks and Wi-Fi page, or how we look after serviced offices.

Not sure which connection you need? Get in touch or call 0203 8833 444 and we’ll give you an honest recommendation.