Most business broadband works like a motorway at rush hour. The more cars (users) share the road, the slower everyone goes. A leased line is different. It's a dedicated lane — exclusively yours, regardless of what anyone else is doing.
What is a leased line?
A leased line is a dedicated, symmetric fibre connection between your premises and the carrier network. Unlike standard broadband, the bandwidth is uncontended — meaning you don't share it with other businesses or residential users in your area.
This means:
- Symmetric speeds — upload and download are identical
- Guaranteed bandwidth — you get exactly what you pay for, 24/7
- SLA-backed uptime — typically 99.9% with financial penalties for breach
- Static IP addresses — essential for hosting, VPN and cloud services
How it differs from standard broadband
Standard broadband (including FTTP) is a contended service. Your ISP oversells the available bandwidth because not everyone uses it at the same time. That works fine at home — but in a business environment, it means unpredictable performance during peak hours.
A leased line removes that variability entirely. Whether it's 9am on a Monday or 3am on a Saturday, your connection performs identically.
Who needs a leased line?
You should seriously consider a leased line if:
- You have 10+ employees using cloud applications like Microsoft 365, CRM systems or hosted telephony
- You rely on VoIP — voice calls need consistent, low-latency connectivity
- You're running cloud workloads — Azure, AWS or hosted line-of-business apps
- Downtime costs you money — if your internet goes down, does business stop?
- You need upload speed — standard broadband has asymmetric speeds that bottleneck uploads
How much does a leased line cost in the UK?
Pricing varies significantly based on your location, speed and the carrier serving your postcode. As a rough guide:
- 100Mbps — £200–£350/month
- 500Mbps — £350–£500/month
- 1Gbps — £500–£800/month
Installation is typically free or included in a 12–36 month contract. Lead times are usually 30–45 working days.
What's the installation process?
- Postcode check — we query all available carriers to find the best options
- Site survey — the carrier inspects the building to confirm the route for the fibre
- Wayleave (if needed) — permission to run fibre across third-party land
- Installation — fibre is run to your premises and terminated in a network interface device
- Testing and handover — we verify the circuit meets SLA before you go live
Alternatives to a leased line
If a leased line isn't right for you yet, consider:
- FTTP Fibre Broadband — more affordable, but contended and asymmetric
- SD-WAN with broadband failover — combine a leased line with a broadband backup for resilience at a lower cost
- Broadband + 4G failover — cheapest option that still provides resilience
Next steps
Not sure which connection type is right for your business? Wanzo quotes across 30+ UK carriers to find you the best circuit at the best price. Book a free discovery call and we'll have a recommendation for you within 48 hours.