We work with all UK carriers such as BT and Virgin to bring you the best choice but who’s the best???
Leased Line Providers
Our Award Winning Suppliers
Content: 9 minute read
So, what’s the truth behind all the leased line providers on the market and who are they? Who is the best and why? Why does leased line pricing differ so much?
Does customer service deteriorate if I pay less for my fibre connection? Is the speed of an inferior quality if I pay less?
These are just some of the questions we will be answering to alleviate all the false rumours which have been doing the rounds for quite some time.
It’s time to shed some light on the actual truth about dedicated circuits. So where do we start?… At the beginning!
Many companies simply do not have the required bandwidth to give them the performance they are looking for. Ethernet Fibre leased lines provide that platform by offering “always on” connectivity.
Most leased line providers offer 24/7 support, 100% service level agreements (SLA) and good turnaround times on faults so lines are becoming more popular than ever due to the fact that they can future proof any business.
However, the reality still remains confusing. Poor connectivity is costing the UK economy around £30 Billion a year! Even though dedicated leased lines are the obvious choice, a lot of businesses are still relying on older, or simply less reliable solutions such as DSL or FTTC.
Without an SLA, you have no control over how long your connection will be down! If you’re a small business just browsing the internet and checking email then this may suffice but for the majority, it’s simply not good enough.
VoIP, VPN and Cloud computing may not run correctly if at all. Not only the performance but the reliability of a leased line can help a business overcome these obstacles. Once the requirement is there, the next step is to find out who to get the connection from…
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Our Proud Customers
BT Wholesale
Getting BT leased lines used to be the only option in the UK. British Telecom still are the biggest player in this market space but they were forced to sell leased lines at wholesale prices to other operators in 2001.
BT has been split into three separate divisions, BT Openreach (infrastructure), BT Wholesale (services for ISPs) and BT Retail. BTnet support is also available. Being the largest provider in the UK with the widest reach, you would expect some of the most competitive pricing but it very rarely happens.
Better pricing usually comes from the slightly smaller operators.
Virgin Media
Virgin Media was created from a section of UK cable franchises. It also operates one of the country’s two main fibre networks. It was formerly called NTL Telewest, then along with Virgin Mobile and virgin.net, rebranded to Virgin Media in 2007. One of the major business leased line providers including a huge core network.
Virgin are in the process of making one of the largest networks in the country and many would argue that they are the main competitor of BT. It’s easy to see why with the resources they have. Pricing is very good and widespread coverage across the UK makes for a very attractive proposition.
TalkTalk
TalkTalk’s initial inception was formed by Carphone Warehouse and now you tend to find that they have access to not only their own network infrastructure but also combine that with local circuits from Openreach so another carrier with a huge reach! They also have the financial capabilities to easily keep up with the “Big 2” listed above.
At TalkTalk, they seem to pride themselves on good pricing with good installation times. A very stable choice for a leased line. After having a lot of bad press for their ventures into standard broadband connections, this seems such a distance away from those days. They are now a true heavyweight in this arena.
Vodafone
Cable & Wireless was the country’s first alternative leased line provider to BT. Vodafone acquired the UK arm of Cable & Wireless in 2012. This was a big advantage for Vodafone. Vodafone use the leased lines to provide bandwidth to thousands of its mobile phone masts across the country.
Connecting you directly to the Vodafone IP backbone and offering dedicated bandwidth with symmetrical speeds just the same as the rest of the providers seems a good start. Issues with installs have been the problem over recent times but Vodafone are working hard to rectify this. One to watch!
SKY
Certainly better known to all as being the largest provider of satellite TV subscription services in the UK worth a staggering 17.7 Billion in 2019! Sky started by offering not only its paid subscribers but also the general public broadband services. Most recently, they have now moved into Ethernet services.
This was a bold move but a great one! SKY now offer 100Mb and 1Gb services with over 2800 exchanges enabled across the UK making it the largest exchange network to offer 1Gb services. On top of this, installation times are below the national average and pricing is very good!
Colt
City of London Telecommunications began supplying leased lines to Britain’s financial district, they then extended their coverage to include Docklands, central Birmingham and Manchester. In the UK, they do not compete for services outside of these areas as they also concentrate on major European cities and more recently, global markets.
If you are in a “Colt” area in the UK then realistically there is nothing to think about. They will win the price war hands down and get you connected quicker than pretty much everybody else. However, these area are too limited to make them a true powerhouse of the leased line marketplace. If you are lucky enough to be in a Colt area or if you are looking to connect global offices then Colt are a carrier we would contact for sure.
CityFibre
CityFibre is the UK’s largest alternative provider of wholesale fibre network infrastructure and the builder of Gigabit Cities. With network projects in 50+ cities and construction underway to reach more, CityFibre is future-proofing the UK. That is there words. However, CityFibre have enjoyed incredible growth and could be classed as a major player in the future.
At the moment however, very similar to Colt as detailed above – their coverage across the UK for businesses is way too small. Again if you are lucky enough to be in a CityFibre area then you can benefit from some great pricing, quick installs and the usual “bells and whistles” you get with a leased line. One to watch…
Neos Networks
They were formerly known as SSE but are now Neos Networks. They are the telecommunications arm of Scottish and Southern Energy. The supplier discovered a very cost effective way to link cities together, after realising that it could string fibre from its electricity pylons. Part of the highly successful SSE Group.
Considered as one of the “Big Six” companies dominating the UK energy market, SSE also provides quality connectivity and data centre services at fantastic prices. SSE have one of the largest networks in the UK, making them a really attractive option and one not to be overlooked.
Nearly all UK leased line providers make use of fibre from their competitors so everybody is piggybacking on everybody else’s network! It’s often cheaper for them to do this than to extend their physical networks.
The reality here is simple! They’re all as good or as bad as each other. Once a leased line is installed, it then comes down to customer service. This is where Connect2 shine!
Every year, different carriers win different awards to celebrate who is best in their field. In all honesty, i think this is purely down to who put the most business on the board.
Back in January 2017, BT had just won the “wooden spoon” award for the worst customer service in Britain! A simple search on Google for reviews of these companies usually answers a lot of the questions for you.
I honestly believe that not one provider out there has the number one spot. They all share the number one spot really due to the fact the they all use each others services, are selling the same product and a leased line is pretty much a commodity product anyway.
Not only that, but you can either call the carrier yourself or use us to sort everything for you leaving you to get on with your day. So, if everything’s a level playing field and the same product is being sold by all, it must just come down to cost, right?
Location plays a huge role in the cost of leased lines – The more rural you are, the harder it can be. Likewise, if you’re in a built up area then the install should be seamless!
With regards location, if you are in a field and the only provider in your area is Virgin for example then you will obviously get better pricing with Virgin than BT leased lines because Virgin are the only carrier who can provide in that area.
However, a company could still just go to BT purely because of the brand and get quoted an awful lot more and pay it. BT will then use a Virgin “tail” so if you had gone to Virgin first you would have saved money. This is purely an example.
If you’re in a built up area where all providers are available, you would think it would be more competitive but the difference in prices is unbelievable sometimes so why the huge price difference? I usually put this down to a lack of knowledge about the market.
If you asked yourself honestly who are the top 10 leased line providers in the UK, could you answer it? probably not. The reason is the exhaustive marketing that the likes of BT and Virgin do which makes it simple to call and accept their quote. But oh how wrong.
Dedicated Account Manager, 1/2 hour response / 4 hour fix service level agreement, 99.999% uptime and 5 star reviews across the board supported by every UK carrier.
Wrong! This is where we come into our own. We have all had a bad experience with a provider and sometimes we all have to expect the delays that occasionally happen when ordering a leased line. But how often are you kept informed by your current carrier?
Do you get paid service credits for down time? What about response times, fix times etc? From the moment you’re a customer, you can rest assured that our customer service won’t slip.
We will also see if there is anything else you require from us. For peace of mind, we also offer you 24/7 support as standard with all our leased line packages in the event of an outage.
So to summarise, you can go direct to the providers, pay more on a monthly basis and be passed from one service respesentative to the next or you can benefit from our lower monthly wholesale costs and get a dedicated Account Manager to look after you???
Regardless of the amount you pay for your leased line, the offer speed you’ve signed up for will be the speed you will receive. This is just one of the many benefits.
100% no! Leased lines are completely private circuits so unlike broadband products (standard internet access), you don’t share bandwidth with anybody.
As an example, if you buy a 100Mb leased line, you’ll receive 100Mb download speed and 100Mb upload speed. There are no peak time slow downs or throttling on leased lines.
On top of this, we offer an industry leading Service Level Agreement with a 1/2 hour response and 4 hour fix for total peace of mind.
The only time you may experience slightly slower speeds than expected would be due to the distance from the exchange which may make your “top speed” slightly less. This would be explained before you ordered but the degradation would be minimal.
If there was an outage then that would result in a loss of your connection temporarily. Other items in your network, if not configured correctly could cause slow down so check your setup.
Working with all providers in the UK gives Connect2 the ability to get our customers the best pricing each time, every time!
You will see many areas on this page where you can get a quote for a leased line. Simply follow the questions and fill in all the details as they are asked on the screen. A quote will then be emailed to you.
What happens in this process is the quote tool pings across to all the providers such as BT, Virgin, TalkTalk, Vodafone, SKY to name a few and takes their pricing and generates an average.
That average price then gets sent across to you to give you a rough idea of pricing. We then tidy that price up even more until you’re left with a cost that comes with our price promise guarantee.
We are the only company in the UK to offer this. We buy in huge bulk but do not have the overheads of the likes of BT, Virgin etc so can directly pass the savings on to our customers.
Without you, we don’t exist. So instead of calling numerous leased line providers, let us save you the time and use our quote tool.
Compare all, save time, save money and get the best customer service. No wonder more and more companies are choosing Connect2.
There is no carriers that wins the “who is the best award” as they all deliver a commodity product. The problem is that they are simply way too big and in the process, they have lost the human touch!
At Connect2, we work with every UK provider to save you time. All our leased lines come from “Tier 1” carriers. We offer a 99.999% service level agreement for total peace of mind.
We also offer 24/7 support 365 days a year, a fully managed router (if needed) plus a static IP address (more available on request). All our services are totally uncontended so whichever UK leased line provider we go with, the service will remain at the highest level.
Our leased line price promise guarantee is applicable to any new circuit. Regardless of if we choose BT, Virgin, TalkTalk or Vodafone, you have peace of mind that the pricing we give you is the best out there.
Instead of going direct, get a quote with us. We’ll compare all the best offers, provide you with the best carrier at the best cost. All our solutions can also be made completely bespoke.
Our Price Promise Guarantee!
Not only do we work with every single top tier provider in the UK, We also offer a price promise guarantee on all our quotes for all our products.
If you find a cheaper quote elsewhere, simply let us know. If it’s a “like for like” proposal, not only do we price match but we will beat it for you! Simply ask for more details.
What makes us stand out from the crowd?
We’re a very unique company in our own right offering what the other companies simply cannot. As you can see from the below, these are just a few of the reasons we are different.
Great pricing? It’s just the beginning!
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