If you're after a BT Leased Line, you may be surprised to learn that you may get a better deal by buying it from one of BT's competitors!

UK Regulators Force BT To Sell Leased Line Circuits at Wholesale Prices!

Back in March 2001, the UK communications regulator OFTEL ordered BT to provide its leased line circuits at wholesale prices, to competing providers.

OFTEL's successor OFCOM got BT to agree not to give BT's retail division special treatment. So when BT Retail order from BT Wholesale or BT Openreach, they get treated just like any other wholesale customer.

Back in the 1950′s, 1960′s and 1970′s a leased line meant a hotline, dedicated old-fashioned analogue telephone line, linking two sites.

However for the past few decades the phrase has come to mean a fixed bandwidth dedicated symmetric digital connection between two sites.

So when people talk of a leased line, they almost always mean a digital leased line. Usually, they mean a point-to-point ethernet circuit.

If your business needs a reliable high-bandwidth symmetric connection to the Internet, you should consider getting an Internet leased line connection.

These provide a dedicated point-to-point link from your office to a well-connected data centre, where your leased line provider can connect it to the Internet.

A leased line is a dedicated, symmetric fixed-bandwidth connection between two sites.

Businesses use leased lines to connect their offices to the Internet, and to connect offices to other offices.

A leased line is a dedicated connection. That means that the bandwidth is reserved solely for use by one company. The connection won't slow down at peak times.

Leased lines are symmetric. They can send data just as quickly as they can receive it. That contrasts with most ADSL connections which offer a fast download speed but a very slow upload speed.

Leased lines have many advantages compared to standard ADSL connections:

Leased Lines are Available at Higher Speeds

ADSL is advertised as being 'Up to 8Mbps'. ADSL2+ is advertised as being 'Up to 20' or Up to 24Mbps'. However these speeds are only available if you live very close to your local telephone exchange. The speeds available to you drop dramatically the further you are from the exchange.

If you can't get the speed you want from ADSL, a leased line may be able to provide it.

Leased lines offer fixed bandwidth connections between two sites. What bandwidths can you choose? 2Mbit/s to 10Gbit/s, typically.

Here's how each of those speeds are delivered:

10Gbit/s and 1Gbit/s of leased line bandwidth

Leased line circuits provide you with a dedicated symmetric connection between two locations.

They are ideal for linking an office to the Internet, or to your company's corporate WAN.

Leased line circuits come in a number of different sizes. 2Mbit/s, 10Mbit/s and 100Mbit/s are common choices, though it is possible to get 1Gbit/s and 10Gbit/s connections as well.

Most leased line circuits use fibre-optic cables to transmit your data. These connections are the most reliable, and offer the highest speeds.

Here's my leased line definition: A leased line is a point-to-point symmetric dedicated data connection.

Point-to-point means that it connects two points (i.e. locations) together.

Symmetric means that you can send and receive data at the same high speeds.

Dedicated means that the connection is just for your use. You don't have to share the bandwidth with anyone. The same bandwidth is available at all times, even at peak times when lots of other customers of your ISP are using their connections to the full.