Leased Line Costs: All You Need to Know in Mar 2024
Are you wondering how much it will cost you to set up a leased line as a business owner? To answer that, we must look at a few different factors. But don’t worry, we know how important it is to be informed when making business decisions, so we have researched for you so you can focus on the essential things, like managing your business. If you have been looking into getting leased line costs, you will probably be aware the quotes can vary dramatically. 100Mb Leased Line prices range from £150 per month and increase depending on your location and bandwidth. 1Gb/1Gbit Leased Lines start from £199 per month with 10Gb/10Gbit Leased Lines starting from £600 per month.
For further information and pricing on leased lines, click here.
It can be a confusing marketplace & we will help you understand why & more importantly, how to avoid paying more than what you need.
Leased Line Costs: Why Do They Vary?
Why do the prices vary so much?
There are a few factors that impact a leased line cost, the main two being:
Let’s start with the speed of the line. Leased Lines range from 10Mb to 10Gb. When we first started doing leased line comparisons in 2011, most people that used our comparison were looking for a 10Mb, and the majority were looking for 100Mb Leased line quotes. This shows us that companies require high speeds on their line & the upload speed has become a key focus for many.
How much more affordable will still always come down to your location. Major cities like London & Manchester have excellent infrastructure & have been leading the way with connectivity options for some time. For consumers, leased line costs in areas like this can start from as little as £149 per month. It will all depend on how close you are to any provider’s PoP (point of presence) the closer you are, the less a leased line will cost you.
The final thing that impacts the cost of a leased line is whether it’s a managed services line or wires only. If it’s wired only, you are renting the physical fibre optic cable and would need to supply all the equipment and monitor the line. Most people opt for a managed line as the line is a dedicated Ethernet connection giving you internet access, and the supplier fits a managed router & monitors the line for faults 24/7.
How much does a BT leased line cost?
The current cost of a BT leased line ranges from £3552 for 100Mbps to £5,400 for 1Gbps (per annum), however, this may vary depending on location and bandwidth requirements.
BTnet Leased Lines was the market leader in leased lines to start. That has changed now & Ofcom works closely with providers to ensure all are meeting lead time targets – Openreach cannot treat any provider better than any other. Most providers will use BT or Virgin Media Fibre to deliver their leased line. All this means is they use the existing Ethernet cables owned by BT or Virgin & then they connect all the equipment that makes the internet run on that line.
‘BT Business owned most of the fibre optic cables in the UK & their connection with Openreach used also meant they could fast-track some installs, which put them at a huge advantage.’
BTNet leased lines tend to be quite a bit more expensive than their competitors – the only reason we have found for this is simply that they are BT & they can. The brand has been the biggest in UK telecoms for decades, so it’s the first provider from which many people will obtain a quote.
Virgin Media are certainly giving them some tough competition now & re-sellers like Aspire & Vaioni can often get much cheaper pricing than you would from the two telecoms giants.
How much is a 100Mb Leased Line?
Right now, the cheapest you will find a 100Mb Leased line for is about £195 per month. Other provider sites will tell you what costs are, but they usually base that on the average in the big inner-city areas to make their pricing look more attractive. The average leased line cost across all our customers that have signed up to a new leased line is closer to £300 a month. The most expensive was just under £600 in a rural area near Darlington.
As with your home broadband & phones, the best way to ensure you’re getting the best deal is to run a comparison. That can be tricky online as most of the top-ranked “comparison” sites for leased lines are providers pretending to be a comparison sites. Daisy Communications probably runs the most successful one. But all they do is compare the tail circuit, which every provider does anyway – then add on their margins.
Below is an example of recent costs for a 100Mb leased line in various UK cities:
City |
CityFibre |
TalkTalk Business |
BT Wholesale |
London |
£260 |
£329 |
£343 |
Manchester |
£260 |
£342 |
£343 |
Birmingham |
£260 |
£329 |
£343 |
Glasgow |
£260 |
£342 |
£343 |
Edinburgh |
£260 |
£329 |
£343 |
Liverpool |
£260 |
£329 |
£343 |
Bristol |
£260 |
£329 |
£343 |
Ultimately if you compare with them, you only see the leased line cost they get from the market – not comparing the market. We would love to help you get a real comparison. Just Click Here & we will contact you to confirm your details & then match you up with the 3 top providers in your area.
But I can get a Virgin Fibre Broadband connection which gives me 300Mb for £60 per month! Why would I pay a few hundred a month for a leased line? If we had a £1 for each time we were asked, we would have all retired by now! It’s a very valid question, though so to understand, we will look at both & try to help you see which option suits you best.
Leased Line or Broadband: Which is Better?
The answer depends. Leased Line is the better product for most businesses; however, fibre broadband can be perfect for many smaller businesses or businesses without relying on internet use.
Let’s start by looking at the speeds – I’ll focus on the market leader, Virgins 300Mb Fibre Broadband. 300Mb for £60 per month sounds great. It will be if that’s the speed you always got. But like most broadband, you rarely get the speed advertised.
That being said, I am currently using it for the home office & in the past year have had half a dozen outages but generally been a pretty good service, the outages have never lasted more than a few hours, so it’s something I can put up with for the home office. I’m based in a suitable connectivity location & have my laptop connected via an Ethernet cable to give the best connection & this is the speed I just got when testing, which you can do here–
Not quite the 300Mb I took out, but a good speed nonetheless & it fits what I need to do when working from home – mainly checking a few e-mails, uploading content & browsing.
However, many businesses don’t just have one person working at a home office – they have multiple departments using business cloud applications like office 365, Salesforce & VoIP phones that all rely on the internet. So, if the connection goes down for a few hours, that would have much more of an impact & loss of revenue than it would for me working from home.
Leased Line is better than broadband because it comes with a Service Level Agreement (SLA) which covers:
- Line Uptime – This will always be above 99.95% but varies for each provider.
- Fix Time – Usually 4-6 hours, but it varies for providers. Business Broadband internet connections can be out for days or weeks at a time – leased lines ensure this never happens.
- Symmetrical speeds – your upload & download time will always be the same
- Bandwidth Guarantee – You will always get the speed you paid for
- 1:1 contention – Unlike broadband, no one else will ever share your line
Both leased lines & broadband serve a purpose but for any internet-reliant business that needs a stable connection with fast uploads – a leased line is the only logical choice. Whatever service you feel is best, we would love to help you get broadband or leased line quotes – follow the links & we will do all the work!
Other useful links about leased lines:
TalkTalk ultrafast business fibre
7 Reasons you need business wifi
What makes business broadband, business? | Compare Your Business Costs
Remember to Compare Your Business Costs is here to help your business every step of the way from business advice, or saving you time and money on your business purchases such as:
James Ward is CEO and founder of CompareYourBusinessCosts.co.uk, a website that won the Prestigious ‘Website of the Year’ only in its second year of operations in 2015. The website has grown organically since then offering comparisons on over 20 different products including insurance, energy, telecoms, card machines, coffee machines and much more. James has a range of interests including horse racing, skiing, rugby and boxing. He splits his time between home family life, friends, exercise and socialising.