Business Broadband vs Leased Line

The choice between business broadband and a leased line is one of the most consequential connectivity decisions a UK business makes. Both deliver internet access, but the underlying technology, architecture, and performance characteristics are fundamentally different.

Business broadband, whether delivered via ADSL, FTTC (fibre to the cabinet), or FTTP (fibre to the premises), uses a shared network infrastructure. Your connection is shared with other businesses and residential customers in your area. This shared model keeps costs low but introduces variability in performance, particularly at peak times.

A leased line, also known as an Ethernet leased line or EFM (Ethernet in the First Mile), is a dedicated, uncontended connection between your business premises and the internet. No other organisation shares your bandwidth. The line is symmetrical, meaning upload and download speeds are identical, and it is backed by a robust Service Level Agreement that guarantees performance and rapid repair times.

For businesses in Lancashire and Northern England, River Technologies provides both solutions. The right choice depends entirely on your specific requirements: the size of your team, the nature of your work, your tolerance for downtime, and your budget.

The headline speed on a broadband package rarely reflects real-world performance during a busy working day. This is where the concept of contention ratio becomes critical.

Contention Ratio Explained: A contention ratio describes how many users share the available bandwidth. A business broadband product with a 20:1 contention ratio means up to 20 customers share the same bandwidth pool. At peak times, such as weekday mornings and early afternoons, every user on that shared pool is competing for the same capacity. Your effective bandwidth may be a fraction of the advertised headline speed.

Business broadband providers typically offer lower contention ratios than residential products. A standard residential broadband package might have a 50:1 or even 80:1 contention ratio. Business broadband from a reputable provider typically operates at 20:1 or better.

Leased Line Performance: A leased line has a contention ratio of 1:1. Your bandwidth is entirely dedicated to your business. The 100Mbps you are paying for is 100Mbps available to you at all times, regardless of what your neighbours are doing. Speeds are available from 10Mbps up to 10Gbps, and the symmetrical nature means upload speed equals download speed.

For context, a business broadband FTTP connection at 100Mbps might deliver 80Mbps download during peak hours, but upload speeds are often asymmetric at 20Mbps or less. A 100Mbps leased line delivers 100Mbps both ways, consistently, around the clock.

Who Needs Leased Line Speeds: Businesses that transfer large files regularly, host their own servers, rely on cloud applications for all operations, run VoIP telephony with multiple simultaneous calls, or operate a customer-facing network all benefit significantly from leased line symmetry and consistency.

For many businesses, the most important difference between broadband and a leased line is not speed but reliability and the support you receive when things go wrong.

Business Broadband SLAs: Most business broadband products come with a best-efforts SLA. This means the provider will aim to resolve faults within a stated window, typically one to three working days for standard faults. There is usually no financial compensation for downtime unless you have purchased a specific enhanced SLA add-on. Broadband faults can sometimes take longer to resolve if they involve the Openreach infrastructure.

Leased Line SLAs: Leased lines are backed by robust contractual SLAs with financial consequences if the provider fails to meet them. A typical leased line SLA guarantees 99.95 percent uptime, which equates to less than four and a half hours of downtime per year. Fault response times are measured in hours rather than days, with many providers offering four-hour engineer response and eight-hour resolution targets.

River Technologies leased line products include SLAs with clearly defined resolution targets and proactive monitoring. If your line degrades before you notice, our network operations team will often contact you before you have had a chance to raise a fault.

Business Continuity Considerations: A leased line failure is a serious event, but the robust SLA means recovery is swift. A broadband failure, while faster to occur in terms of customer notice, can take considerably longer to resolve under a best-efforts arrangement. For businesses where internet connectivity is genuinely mission-critical, such as professional services firms, financial services, or businesses that process customer transactions online, the SLA difference alone often justifies the leased line investment.

The cost difference between business broadband and a leased line is significant, but so is the value delivered. Understanding when each solution is appropriate helps businesses make the right investment decision.

Business Broadband Costs: A business FTTC broadband package typically costs between 30 and 60 pounds per month, depending on the speed tier and contract length. Business FTTP is more expensive, typically 50 to 100 pounds per month, but delivers much faster speeds and lower contention. For businesses with modest connectivity needs, this represents excellent value.

Leased Line Costs: Leased line pricing varies significantly based on speed, location, and distance from the nearest exchange or fibre node. A typical 100Mbps leased line for a business in a Lancashire town centre might cost between 300 and 700 pounds per month. In more rural locations, installation costs and monthly rentals are higher. River Technologies will provide a specific quote for your address.

When Business Broadband Is the Right Choice: Broadband is appropriate for businesses with up to ten staff, primarily using cloud applications with modest upload requirements, where brief periods of slower performance are acceptable, and where budget is a primary consideration. It is also a sensible starting point for new businesses before their connectivity requirements are fully understood.

When a Leased Line Is the Right Choice: A leased line is the right choice when consistent upload speeds are critical, when your business processes a high volume of concurrent VoIP calls, when you host servers or applications that other businesses or customers access, when downtime has a direct and measurable financial cost, or when you have more than 20 staff all relying on a single internet connection for cloud-based work.

Many businesses operate a tiered approach: leased line as primary connectivity with a business broadband connection as automatic failover. River Technologies designs these solutions routinely for businesses across Lancashire, Preston, Blackburn, and the wider Northern England region.