Leased lines worth it?

[MozzComm]

Has anyone here converted from a leased line to Broadband??

we have a couple each costing about 18K per year.

but im temted to axe them when i see 100mb Broadband with a next day fix for about £200 per month?

has anyone took the risk?

 

[Posilan]

Has anyone here converted from a leased line to Broadband??

we have a couple each costing about 18K per year.

but im temted to axe them when i see 100mb Broadband with a next day fix for about £200 per month?

has anyone took the risk?

The throughput of a leased line shoudl be better than any *dsl product as contention should be 1:1.

Leased lines also have an SLA whereas dsl does not - if you can live potentially without connectivity for a few days/weeks whilst a line is fixed then should be ok as long as the other reasons you chose a leased line in the first place would be resolved by DSL.

Steve

 

[MozzComm]

The throughput of a leased line shoudl be better than any *dsl product as contention should be 1:1.

Leased lines also have an SLA whereas dsl does not - if you can live potentially without connectivity for a few days/weeks whilst a line is fixed then should be ok as long as the other reasons you chose a leased line in the first place would be resolved by DSL.

Steve

speed and sla are both reasons i opted for them - but with broadband from virgin are saying a next day fix - FIX being the importnat word.

may have a lenghy conversation with them

 

[Posilan]

with broadband from virgin are saying a next day fix - FIX being the importnat word.

may have a lenghy conversation with them

Make sure you get it in writing that they will actually fix and not just compensate.

Steve

 

[MozzComm]

Make sure you get it in writing that they will actually fix and not just compensate.

Steve

will do - and check how much of the 'upto' speed i will get.

i dont think the big players have thought through how many people will bin the leased line when fast broadband is widely available

 

[leemason]

Also have a look at EFM. Traditional leased lines tend to be symmetric (i.e. same speed up and down). Most broadband is asymmetric (slower up than down). EFM is symmetric. What speed are your leased lines and do you need the symmetric nature of leased lines (is access equally up as well as down)?

 

[MozzComm]

ther both 100/100 and yes symetric is a must.

 

[glennbtn]

Have to say EFM. If you have a book broadband provider the do get an SLA. Try a good UK based company such as Zen.

 

[10032012]

speed and sla are both reasons i opted for them - but with broadband from virgin are saying a next day fix - FIX being the importnat word.

may have a lenghy conversation with them

Yeah, and took them 2 weeks to restore internet here... very poor communications, I thought I would never be getting internet back. Can't believe they still insist of routine modem reboots and accessing the internet with Internet Explorer (we have NO internet you idiot.. what part of that do you not understand? Also don't use IE. Their so-called engineers think that although you aren't connected due to a fault... that simply rebooting your PC a few times and using IE will solve a hardware/line fault... one day fix? doubt it! )

I think you find that they AIM to fix in 24 hours... not a guarantee, this might even be 96% but the 4% is still a big margin for error. The VM network continuously have faults - it will be slightly better if you are a business customer. In hosting for example the big target is 99.9% uptime - a 96% uptime is rather terrible as an industry standard.

They throttle traffic and the UNLIMITED claims is all down to AUP. The speeds probably wont be needed unless you have a site of hundred plus users wanting to access at once. You probably wont be able to host your corporate website and although the speeds of download are quite good the default DNS and ping rates are an issue in most places.

But for the price? I would probably say go for it... but make sure you have a backup internet connection such as ADSL for when it does go down. You can get a router or switch that accepts two lines (WAN1, WAN2).

 

[serverhouse]

Has anyone here converted from a leased line to Broadband??

we have a couple each costing about 18K per year.

but im temted to axe them when i see 100mb Broadband with a next day fix for about £200 per month?

has anyone took the risk?

I think you could do better than 18k PA (I'm assuming you have a 100Mb line) for a leased line.

One option might be dual DSL products from different supplies (less cost but more reliable than single DSL)

 

[serverhouse]

i dont think the big players have thought through how many people will bin the leased line when fast broadband is widely available

I think they have ;-)

Many companies pay for <4 hour fix, have redundant lines, up to and over 1000Mb/s, something DSL won't be doing for a number of years.

1). You'll be more contended - do you think if BT have 200 business on an exchange they'll have a 20,000Mb/s uplink? -I suspect it'll be 100-1000Mb in truth. - Leased line is direct and not significantly contended

2). Most BT DSL systems charge ISP's per GB to send/receive data, with a leased line the ISP's cost is fixed. The ISP will either operate a 'fair usage' policy or ensure your usage doesn't exceed his profit margin.

3). As more and more people buy DSL gear & routers etc the price drops making it cheaper.

4). Support and QoS offerings will be lower on DSL products. If you have a customer paying you £1000 a month when they ask for something you'll give it to them, at £100 a month they'll ask you for another £50 a month for that 'extra' service.

5). ISP's upstream connections for LL services will tend to match the clients' SLA, same applies to DSL.

Very much a case of you get what you pay for.

If you want to downgrade to DSL then I'd get it installed, try it for a few months before you cancel your LL.

 

[Posilan]

I think they have ;-)

Many companies pay for <4 hour fix, have redundant lines, up to and over 1000Mb/s, something DSL won't be doing for a number of years.

1). You'll be more contended - do you think if BT have 200 business on an exchange they'll have a 20,000Mb/s uplink? -I suspect it'll be 100-1000Mb in truth. - Leased line is direct and not significantly contended

2). Most BT DSL systems charge ISP's per GB to send/receive data, with a leased line the ISP's cost is fixed. The ISP will either operate a 'fair usage' policy or ensure your usage doesn't exceed his profit margin.

3). As more and more people buy DSL gear & routers etc the price drops making it cheaper.

4). Support and QoS offerings will be lower on DSL products. If you have a customer paying you £1000 a month when they ask for something you'll give it to them, at £100 a month they'll ask you for another £50 a month for that 'extra' service.

5). ISP's upstream connections for LL services will tend to match the clients' SLA, same applies to DSL.

Very much a case of you get what you pay for.

If you want to downgrade to DSL then I'd get it installed, try it for a few months before you cancel your LL.

I think you may have misquoted me there - I didn't post that

Steve

 

[NickRyder]

Has anyone here converted from a leased line to Broadband??

we have a couple each costing about 18K per year.

but im temted to axe them when i see 100mb Broadband with a next day fix for about £200 per month?

has anyone took the risk?

Hi there,

£18K a year sounds like a lot of money. Have you considered getting some revised prices from your current supplier and a couple of others? There are a lot of really good deals on at the moment so you may get a big reduction.

In the meantime search for "which is better, BT Infinity (FTTC) or a leased line" and that aarticle on the CCS Blog will give you a better understanding and hopefully help you decide how to proceed [FONT=Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif]


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[sam@sears]

Instead of jepordising speed, availability and resiliency for cost control or vice-versa, i would recommend looking at some alternative suppliers for a like for like service, or investigate EFM. You will probably find that cost of delivery for the speeds your running has dropped since your current contract started, and shaving 30% off of your current spend is easily do-able. Im more than happy to run some costs for you if you want to provide me with a postcode?

 

[Pentangle]

EFM is probably what the majority of us would say. It does however depend upon the Exchange and whether it's been enabled. We can provide broadband, EFM or leased lines (but would need your postcode in private message in order to investigate options).

 

[CommsWorld]

I have had clients in a similar predicament. You will never get a guarantee 'Fix' on a broadband & I have seen customers down for 5 days or more. I would suggest getting some cost comparisons which I have seen drastic reductions for other clients as we have massive buying power and would be happy to do that for you if you would PM me your details. It may also help to know a little more about how you use your lines as there are many alternative solutions that we may be able to help with.

 

[Subbynet]

Someone that bought 2 leased lines for 18k a year but comes to UKBF for advice - and is looking at Virgin as an alternative...

Hahahahahahahahahahahah

Yeah right... No wonder they've been banned, this was obviously a load of rubbish.

 

[NeilT]

As most have already pointed out you need to shop around as £18k a year excessive.

EFM is perhaps your best option obviously depending on availability from your local exchange. There are 2 pair and 4 pair EFM and it sounds like you need the 4 pair which gives you bandwidth of 2Mbps to 20Mbps.
Purchasing EFM with a 3 year contract will reduce your installation cost by 50%.

If you want any further information please ask.

Neil

 

[faceoff1980]

I think you could convert to EFM ethernet first mile that should save you a bit.

 

[Tamar Telecom]

Are you referring to Virgin’s “Big Red Internet” product?

That isn’t ADSL or a cable product; it is effectively a leased line.
I’m not sure what the SLA is like however.

I’m not sure what they are like for leased lines, I’ve never used them before.

 

[Eloises]

Mozzcomm where in the UK are you based?