What is a leased line?

A leased line is a private data circuit between your premises and the wider internet. Unlike broadband, it is not shared with other users: the capacity you buy is the capacity you get, in both directions, at all times of day.

That uncontended, symmetric nature is the whole point. Upload speed equals download speed, the speed is guaranteed rather than described as up to, and there is no evening slowdown because the neighbourhood is streaming.

Leased lines carry service level agreements rather than best-efforts promises. Those agreements spell out the availability target, usually measured as a percentage uptime per year, and the fix time if the circuit fails, typically measured in hours with compensation attached when the target is missed.

They also come with static IP addresses as standard, clean routing and predictable performance. For telephony, that last part matters: a hosted phone system sounds consistently good on a leased line because it never competes for capacity.

A leased line earns its keep where downtime or congestion has a visible price. Businesses that run their entire phone system over the internet, move large files between sites, host their own systems, or have staff who cannot work without the connection are the natural fit.

Where those pressures do not exist, business-grade FTTP with a solid support commitment is usually the smarter spend. The honest answer is about load: if your current connection sits comfortably under capacity even at its busiest, you are paying for something you are not using.

Leased lines are built to order rather than switched on from a shelf, so there is a survey and installation lead time, which varies by site. Capacity near your building also affects the price, which is why two sites in the same town can receive different quotes for the same service.

A proper availability and budget check at your address takes the guesswork out of it, and costs nothing to run.