Researching a product or service is a great way to gain some in-depth knowledge, and a necessary exercise that will help towards your decision. But sometimes, after digging down, you just want to be able to weigh up the good and bad, in-order to make an informed decision. Well, we have written up the pro's and con's of a Leased Line for that very reason...

---

 

The Pro's

Leased Lines are regarded by the Telecoms industry as the current pinnacle of Internet connectivity for businesses. With this, their pro's are much greater, than their con's. This is purely because Leased Lines are far superior to any other connectivity available to businesses, today.

• Speed

The first thing most customers will look at when procuring a service from Vostron is the speed. It is the same with buying a supercar (we would imagine). 'How fast can it go?' Well, thankfully a Leased Line is fast... really fast. The highest speeds available are 10 Gbps, but these are very rarely procured as they are very expensive and not really required unless you are running a small Datacentre for example. They then decrease incrementally to 1 Gbps, 100 M/bits and 10 M/bits respectively. Our most common procurement is the 100 M/bits service, this offers more than enough capacity for the customer to handle it's office bandwidth needs, whether it be VoIP, video conferencing, files transfer, video streaming, and so on. The bottom line is, it can handle it. A Leased Line's real differentiator is that it is a symmetric service. This means that the speeds it can achieve will be both upload and download, unlike its DSL counterparts.

 

• Security

Security has always been a factor that Internet service providers take extremely seriously. Thankfully there is some very advanced hardware and software available, to keep malicious entities at bay. With Leased Lines, this job becomes easier. Because the bandwidth is dedicated to you, you are in control of what runs over it, how many Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), Wifi networks you set up, etc.

Vostron's technical team provides advice and guidance to its customer's with all their security requirements by or can interface with any designated local IT support team, if preferred. 

 

• Dedicated & Uncontended

All other types of connectivity available to businesses: ADSL, FTTC, EFM etc are shared. This means that the physical network in the ground is for the use of many others. Because of this, you are open to many potential problems. Security as previously mentioned is a big challenge over these circuits, interference, breaks and SLA's are also large factors to take into account.

Leased Lines are solely dedicated to you, it is your own private network connected to the wider internet. This is why Leased Lines are so unique, no other connectivity can provide this.

 

• Capacity

As briefly mentioned under Speed, the capabilities of a Leased Line are tremendous. They are used in a variety of industries, for an even wider range of responsibilities. Finance sectors, such as stockbrokers, will use a Leased Line for its extremely low latency. This allows them to connect to market instruments such as Bloomberg, make swift investment decisions, increasing profit, decreasing trading risk and satisfying client demand. Design agencies will use them for their ability to download and upload huge files, very quickly. For example, a 1 Gbps Leased Line can download a 1 GB file in under eight seconds.

A Leased Line can do these impressive feats easily, allowing the rest of the business to comfortably make VoIP calls, browse the Internet, access the cloud and video conference, all without missing a beat.

 

• Reliable

To say all of the above and not assume that Leased Lines are reliable, would be foolish. As you can imagine this kind of responsibility and reliance requires a service that is not going to fail. It is safe to say that procuring a Leased Line will fill you with more confidence than any other connectivity. Due to its dedication and uncontended nature, failures, such as security alerts, interference and breaks, are far less likely. This is not to say that a Leased Line is impervious. In reality, anything can break and Leased Lines are no different. Leased Lines do come with the best SLA's (Service Level Agreements). These can contain very low 'break-fix' times to get your business back on track very quickly. To achieve this, it is always highly recommended to have back-ups, as insurance. These typically come in the form as ADSL's. But these are all details that can be discussed with us.

 

• MPLS network

If you have a business with multiple locations, then a secure MPLS service may be of interest to you. More information on MPLS can be found here. Leased Lines are a great basis for an MPLS circuit especially as all of the above would then apply to all of your locations.

 

• Upgrades

Lastly upgrade paths for Leased Lines are easily available, simple to action and quick to process. As Leased Lines are dedicated and the capacity is already in the network it allows for a smooth process.