If you are working from home for the foreseeable future, you may be evaluating your internet connectivity choices — opting for ‘fibre’ if your provider offers it in your area. But if you have already upgraded to ‘fibre’ and it still isn’t as fast as the lightening-quick connection you have in the office, this is why.

Fibre Broadband

Fibre broadband is commonly shared with other subscribers – i.e. your neighbours or potentially the other small businesses in your office building. This means you share the bandwidth, which can result variable performance depending on the other subscribers’ usage.  Also, fibre broadband has asymmetric performance. This means the download capacity is larger and the upload capacity is smaller. It is likely to offer faster speeds than the other broadband options, but it won’t be the same as a fibre leased line.

Fibre Leased Line

Fibre leased lines are usually installed by companies with lots of users, or those that require high performance speeds to run mission-critical and remote access programmes. However with the increased popularity of cloud-based applications, an increased number of smaller and medium sized businesses are installing fibre leased lines to support their bandwidth-hungry programmes.

A fibre leased line is a dedicated line set up to serve only your company and is not shared with other users. Leased line services offer symmetrical performance where both the download and upload speeds are equal (in most cases), and can range from 2Mbps to as much as 10Gbps.   

The availability and cost of a leased line service is dependent upon your business location. Not all businesses are in a location where fibre leased lines are available.

Could I get a fibre leased line at home?

Potentially, but it might be difficult to find a provider and it wouldn’t be cheap. Most experts would also tell you it is ‘overkill’, as a fibre broadband, FTTC or ADSL connection will probably suffice for most people’s requirements — even if they are working from home. With that said, if your job requires you to have guaranteed upload / download speeds, then it may be a reasonable option.

We have witnessed unfathomable leaps in wireless technology in recent years, but decent connectivity is one technology that still relies on having a good old-fashioned cable in the ground. Regardless of whether that cable is copper or fibre, we can’t avoid the requirements for a physical connection. The closest thing we can get to magic, limitless, superfast internet is a fibre leased line, but even fibre leased lines are susceptible (although rarely) to run of the mill technology breakdowns — from a cut in the line to the data centre to which it connects having a power failure. So as you weigh up your home office requirements in the days to come, remember there is no perfect solution, and each option has pros and cons in terms of reliability, price, availability, speeds and contract length.

To learn more about fibre leased lines, please get in touch with one of our friendly experts today on 0207 078 3200 or info@vtsl.net.

About VTSL

VTSL is a leading cloud communications provider in the UK & Ireland, specialising in cloud telephony, LAN & WAN, fibre connectivity and unified communications. VTSL offers solutions ranging from contact centres as a service to flexible working solutions to integrated productivity management. VTSL has over 10 years of experience providing the leading IP telephony platform to businesses and over 15,000 users across the UK and Ireland. To speak to one of our experts today, please call 020 7078 3200 or email info@vtsl.net.