Business broadband & leased line: the key differences

Business Broadband & Leased Line: The Key Differences?

Expert conclusion: The label ‘business broadband’ doesn’t really mean anything – the term covers a wide range of services, each with very different experiences. Get into the details, and save yourself a lot of frustration and disappointment.

What is business broadband?

Most of the time, it’s just the same product as the ISP (Internet Service Provider) sells to their residential customers, but more expensive and probably bundled with a low-level cyber security product.

It has a dedicated web page, with stock photos of people doing business. And it comes with some comforting words to tell you that they know how hard business is. Excruciating.

Your traffic isn’t prioritised. Your connection isn’t dedicated. And if you have an ‘account manager’, they’re probably responsible for literally thousands of customers like you.

If you pay more, you might get a commitment to investigate faults within a given time – usually within a day.

When you’re looking for business broadband, bear these things in mind. Look at the details to see if you’re simply being upsold a bog-standard home broadband plan in a fancy wrapper.

What does great internet connectivity for business look like?

It’s very easy to call something business broadband. But it’s a very different thing to provide internet connectivity that’s genuinely fast and reliable enough for London business in 2024.

One of the fundamental features of an internet product for business is a dedicated connection.

‘Broadband’ or ‘FTTP’ (that’s Fibre to the Premise) means that the service you’re paying for is shared between you and typically 30 of your neighbours – whether they’re houses or other businesses.

So when you have a broadband or FTTP connection, don’t expect to get the Gbps speeds you’ve paid for at busy times (which is most of the working day). It’s cheap, and it connects. But it’s not a product that you can rely on to keep your business running.

At the busiest times, you'll have to hope that it’ll give you what you need. That might mean putting up with a poor-quality video call, a painful wait downloading a PowerPoint, or an eternity for every employee to log in to Teams at 9am.

Internet connectivity that you and your business can rely on is going to be dedicated to you, and that means taking a leased line.

What is the difference between business broadband and business leased line or ‘dedicated’ internet?

One word: reliability.

That’s the key difference between the experience of these two technologies: how much you can rely on your connection, and how that impacts your business. We see it in every customer interaction as they move from broadband to direct internet  – the shackles are off.

While business broadband infrastructure is shared with the businesses and houses around you, leased line (or direct internet) infrastructure is dedicated to you – it isn’t shared with anyone.

It’s your connection, and every bit of the bandwidth you’re paying for is yours. It’s guaranteed. Always giving you the internet speed and capacity you need, no matter how busy things get.

The whole Manchester office coming down for a team day? No problem. Sending a broadcast-quality video file to a client on a deadline? Easy. Worrying about signing up to a new cloud-based software for project management? Don’t. Putting the CEO on a video call that has to be perfect? Do it.  

A 10Gbps leased line ensures you always have the speed you need. It’s a service you and your business can rely on.

What are the key features of business leased line and business broadband?

Leased line:

• Dedicated to one customer - a dedicated cable between your office and your provider's data centre

• Symmetrical – you get the same upload speed as download speed

• Highly reliable

Broadband:

• Shared by up to 32 users

• Usually asymmetrical – upload typically much slower than download

• Prone to performance issues, particularly during the working day

The technology explained

We’ve covered the difference in experience, but what’s the technology difference?

A ‘leased line’ is a dedicated fibre connection between your office space and your provider’s spot in a data centre (often called a Point of Presence, or PoP). This is where your connection reaches the internet or cloud.

Your proximity to the provider’s data centre is important for latency – which is the speed at which things happen online. It’s not to be confused with upload and download speed, which is how long content takes to get to/from you. It’s more like how quickly the order you give is obeyed.

Two more important features of a leased line network  are how many data centres your provider connects to, and how many diverse routes they have between you and those centres.

More than one data centre, and numerous routes equals resilience. And resilience is vital in business internet connections. If one route gets blocked, your data has alternative routes so there's no disruption.

Leased lines use fibre, but they’re not like residential broadband as the fibre line isn’t shared. You’ll often read about leased lines being called Ethernet, but the main terms to look out for are Leased line or Direct Internet Access (DIA).

A broadband connection is typically PON-based – that’s passive optical network, and relates to the way in which ‘splitters’ are used to connect multiple customers to the same fibre. It’s a revolutionary technology when it comes to delivering fibre to multiple homes, where super low cost is the main driver. But for business, it’s ‘best effort’, at best.

It’s cheap to deliver, and so it’s relatively cheap to buy. But it comes with the reality that you cannot rely on it. If the other homes or businesses on your fibre are using the network, then you’ll suffer.

What are the benefits of a leased line?

A dedicated connection means guaranteed bandwidth

With a leased line, you get every bit you pay for, unlike a shared ‘broadband’ connection, where you can pay for 1Gbps but it’s highly unlikely you’ll ever see that speed.

A connection you can rely on

Always the speed you’ve paid for and infrastructure that’s backed up by an SLA (Service Level Agreement) – and automatic compensation if you choose a really good ISP. And the ability to order a back-up line, to increase the resilience of your service.

Lower latency

The more direct architecture and quicker route to a data centre (where your connection hits the internet) means a leased line will almost always offer lower latency than a broadband connection.

Upload that matches download

Most broadband, FTTP and cable services advertise the download speed but keep quiet on upload – that’s because upload is significantly slower in these services, often as little as a tenth of the speed. Leased lines have ‘symmetrical’ download and upload.

Enhanced security

Security can never be taken for granted, so check on the Infosec and compliance qualifications of your provider – typically, those selling residential-grade services won’t invest in this area, but serious business providers recognise the huge benefit to their customers.

How quickly can I get connected to business broadband?

This is such an important question to ask – don’t assume anything.

In terms of connection time, the difference between leased line and broadband isn’t a thing to worry about. Neither is guaranteed to be quick; neither is particularly slow. It really does depend on the building that you’re in.

What does change things significantly is the network provider that you choose and whether or not they own their own network. If you’re joining a provider that just resells Openreach, then they *cannot* prioritise getting you connected.

It’s not because they don’t want your business. It’s because regulation means that Openreach can’t show any kind of preference to any provider.

Try joining a provider that owns its own network, and you’ll find that they’re not constrained in this way. They can – assuming they really do own all the parts of their network and service – work with you to get you connected in the timeframe that works for you.

Another thing to look out for in your provider is an in-house wayleave team. A wayleave is permission by the building landlord/freeholder to the internet provider to allow them to install a fibre connection to the premises.

It’s more often than not a formality, but choosing a provider that is an expert at it and doesn’t outsource to a third party can significantly reduce the time you might wait.  

What is an SLA, and what will it mean for me?

An SLA is a Service Level Agreement – the level of service the provider agrees they’ll provide to you. It’s the commitment that a provider makes to you as a customer.

Business plans are often only differentiated from residential plans by an SLA. The commitment to look at your fault within a day is something that you’re paying a fair bit for, so check the details and what you’re actually being promised.

Look for a provider that commits to a fix time and backs it up with automatic compensation – that way you know they’re serious about getting things right. Most providers know that most businesses won’t bother to apply for compensation – so the ones that commit to compensate automatically are the ones who’ve got your back.    

Ask your provider about their SLA, and how they back it up with automatic compensation.

Who should get a business broadband plan?

Look online, and you’ll find the advice that every single business should get a business broadband plan. And when you consider that most business broadband plans are just repackaged residential plans with a higher price, that’s no surprise.

But there’s no point paying extra for a business plan unless it’s really delivering a benefit to you. And if your solo or home business can make do with a normal residential broadband plan, then there’s very little point upgrading to a more expensive ‘business’ plan.

If you do go for a residential plan, then think about FTTP vs FTTC (fibre-to-the-cabinet) or cable. There’s a big gap in the speeds and reliability of these technologies. None of it is ‘business-grade’, but a well-priced FTTP plan will give you a better experience than FTTC (which is fibre up to your street, then an old copper wire from the green box to your house), or cable, which is notoriously prone to faults and downtime.

The real question is do you need a dedicated line, or can you make do with a shared connection? It’s about weighing up the importance of cost against the importance of reliability.

What does it cost you when you don’t have the connection you need to get the job done? And what does it cost you when the network you’re on has a two-day outage?

If you honestly don’t mind about the reliability of your connection, then a residential FTTP line could be for you.

For everyone else, the answer is a dedicated line. You need the guarantee that your internet connection is always going to give you the speed and capacity you need. And a back-up line ensures you’re never offline.

What kind of business needs a dedicated line?

The answer to this question ten years ago would have been a very onerous list of requirements involving a then-mysterious notion called ‘the cloud’. And only larger businesses would have ticked the boxes.

But this is 2024 and everything’s changed.

Business now depends on a remote workforce, video calls, reliable file transfers, and cloud-based storage, sharing and software. It’s the norm.

And the more people you have connecting at any one time, the more capacity you need in your internet connection – especially at peak times.

Think about being at home, and Netflix buffering because one other person in the house is downloading a game or a movie. That’s not something that a business can tolerate, so you need plenty of capacity for each employee.

Your internet connection shouldn’t be a barrier to your work, so it’s best to choose a plan that will always give you what you need.

What happens if I need to move office?

No matter the type of connection, if you’re moving office then you’ll have to talk to your business ISP provider in good time and ask them to provide a connection to your new premises.

If your provider already has a connection to the new address, then things will (or at least should!) be quick and simple. If they don’t, they’ll build one or use a different network that’s already in the right area – that’s why it’s important to give them good notice.

Ask if your service provider would charge you a fee for the move and activation.

What should I look for in a business broadband plan?

There are four things you should look out for in a business broadband plan:

• Paying more for the same – don’t be conned by a ‘business plan’ that’s just a residential deal with a mild security boost

• Signing up for shared vs dedicated – now you know the difference, you can make an informed choice on what’s right for you, but the main difference is a connection you can rely on

• Being drawn in by an SLA – these commitments often don’t mean a lot; check out if your provider will automatically compensate you for any downtime, then you know they’re serious

• Getting connected quickly – there are never guarantees, but a provider that owns its own network and manages ‘wayleaves’ in-house is a very good place to start

Conclusion

A business plan isn’t for every business. And not every business plan is worth the extra cost. But a dedicated leased line will ensure that connectivity never holds your business back. Assess how dependent your operation is on having a truly reliable connection that always delivers the speed you need. That will tell you what type of service you should go for.

And if you’re not sure, contact our team and they’ll be happy to talk it through and recommend what’s right for you.

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