If you’re choosing between business broadband and a leased line, the key question is simple: how critical is your internet connection to daily operations? For many smaller organisations, good business broadband is enough. Once phones, Microsoft Teams, cloud applications and remote work become central, a leased line (a form of dedicated internet access for business) starts to look less like a luxury and more like insurance.
This guide explains leased line vs business broadband in straightforward terms so you can decide based on risk and growth, rather than on headline speed alone.
Business broadband vs leased line: the quick comparison
| Feature | Business broadband | Leased line (dedicated internet) |
| Connection type | Shared with other users (contended) | Dedicated to your business only (uncontended) |
| Speed | “Up to” speeds, can drop at busy times | Guaranteed upload and download speeds |
| Symmetry | Asymmetric broadband (faster download than upload) | Symmetric, same upload and download speed |
| SLAs | Basic business SLA | Strong SLA (uptime and fix time commitments) |
| Reliability | Generally good, can be affected by local congestion | High, designed for mission-critical services |
| Best for | Smaller teams, email, browsing, light SaaS | VoIP, contact centres, heavy cloud use, remote desktop |
| Typical cost | Lower monthly cost | Higher monthly cost |
A useful way to think about it:
- Business broadband is like a well-managed public road, usually fine, but busy at rush hour.
- A leased line is your own private lane that nobody else can use.
What business broadband actually gives you
With business broadband, you’re usually on FTTC or FTTP over shared local infrastructure. You get more stability than a home line, but you still share capacity with other users on the same cabinet or exchange.
In practice, that means:
- Contended bandwidth, you share the available capacity with other customers
- Advertised “up to” speeds, rather than guaranteed performance
- Asymmetric broadband, for example 100 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up
- Business features such as static IP addresses, better routers and a dedicated support line
For many SMEs this is perfectly adequate. If you’ve got a single office, a modest team and most of your day is spent in web applications, email and cloud storage, well-configured business broadband for VoIP and day-to-day work can offer very good value.
Broadband is usually enough when:
- You’ve got fewer than around 15–20 users on one site
- You’re not running a high-volume phone or contact centre
- You’re not uploading large video or CAD files all day
- A slow period is inconvenient, but doesn’t stop the business operating
If that’s your situation, it often makes more sense to improve Wi-Fi coverage, router configuration and basic security before considering a leased line.
What a leased line changes
A leased line is a dedicated fibre circuit from your premises into your provider’s network. It’s a classic example of dedicated internet access for business. No other customer uses that circuit.
Compared with standard broadband, it offers three main differences:
Uncontended bandwidth
You’re not sharing capacity with other premises in the area.
Symmetric speeds
If you buy 200 Mbps, you get 200 Mbps down and 200 Mbps up. This is particularly important for VoIP, Teams and remote access.
Stronger SLAs
A typical leased line SLA vs broadband SLA will include clear uptime guarantees, target fix times and better escalation paths.
A leased line tends to make sense when:
- You’ve got 20 or more users regularly online at once
- Phones and cloud phone systems are central to sales or customer service
- Remote workers live in VPNs or remote desktops throughout the day
- Outages or poor performance have obvious financial or reputational costs
In these cases, connectivity moves from being an IT cost to being business-critical infrastructure.
The real-world difference between leased line and broadband
The difference between leased line and broadband isn’t just a line in a contract. It’s how your working day feels.
On business broadband, performance rises and falls as everyone in your area logs on and off. You might be fine for most of the day, then hit choppy Teams calls at 9.30 am and 4 pm when many people are on video.
On a leased line, performance is more predictable. Your capacity isn’t affected by your neighbours. This is why a fibre leased line vs fibre broadband can feel very different, even when the advertised speeds appear similar.
Signs that your current broadband might be the bottleneck include:
- Regular “robotic” or broken-up calls on VoIP
- Teams or Zoom meetings where video freezes or drops
- Uploads that are very slow even when downloads appear fine
- Staff complaining at the same times every day
If these patterns keep returning, and you’ve already improved Wi-Fi and router settings, it’s worth looking seriously at leased line vs business broadband instead of assuming it’s “just one of those things”.
Cost and risk: more than “how much per month?”
On paper, the leased line cost for small business will almost always be higher than broadband. The more useful question is:
“What does it cost us if the internet is down for half a day?”
For some organisations, the answer is “not much”, they can adapt and manage. For others, half a day offline means missed orders, unhappy customers, broken SLAs and staff who can’t do their jobs.
In broad terms:
- Business broadband is cheaper, often on 12–24 month terms, with “best effort” speeds and limited compensation
- A leased line is more expensive, usually on 36-month terms, with defined uptime and fix time commitments
If a single outage would cost more than a couple of months of leased line fees, it becomes easier to see why some businesses view a leased line as risk management rather than a nice-to-have.
A simple way to decide
You don’t need a spreadsheet of acronyms to decide between business broadband vs leased line. This quick framework can help.
Broadband is probably enough if:
- You’re a small, single-site office
- You’re not running a heavy contact centre
- Teams and VoIP work well most of the time
- Downtime is frustrating, but doesn’t shut the business
A leased line is worth serious consideration if:
- Calls and cloud phone systems are central to how you serve customers
- You rely heavily on cloud applications and remote access
- You’re planning to grow headcount or open new sites
- Clients expect strong uptime and defined response times
- You’ve already improved Wi-Fi and router setups and still see issues
If you sit in the middle, it’s often worth asking a provider to review your current setup and usage before you commit either way.
Common mistakes when comparing options
There are a few common traps when people weigh up business broadband vs leased line.
Choosing by headline speed only
A “1 Gbps” contended broadband service doesn’t guarantee smooth calls if everyone else nearby is busy. A lower-speed dedicated internet access for business line can behave better in practice.
Ignoring upload speeds
Uploads power calls, video, backups and file sharing. The asymmetric broadband model (fast downloads and slower uploads) is where smaller offices often begin to struggle as they grow.
Assuming one line is enough for ever
Whether you stick with broadband or move to a leased line, there comes a point where you also want a backup, such as a second broadband service or 4G/5G failover, especially if you can’t easily trade without connectivity.
FAQs: business broadband vs leased lines
1. Is a leased line always faster than business broadband?
Not always. You can buy similar headline speeds on both. The benefit of a leased line is that those speeds are guaranteed and uncontended, rather than “up to”.
2. Do we need a leased line for VoIP and cloud phone systems?
Smaller teams can run VoIP on good business broadband. If phones are mission-critical, such as a support desk or sales floor, a leased line gives you more predictable quality and capacity.
3. How long does a leased line take to install?
Broadband can often be live within days. A leased line can take several weeks to a few months, depending on surveys, permissions and engineering work.
4. Can we start on broadband and upgrade later?
Yes. Many organisations begin with broadband and move to a leased line once they add more users, open new locations or rely more heavily on cloud services.
5. Is a leased line more secure?
It’s more predictable and easier to manage, but not automatically more secure. Security still depends on your firewalls, configuration and policies, whichever service you choose.
6. How do we know what speed we need?
That depends on user numbers, the tools you use and your plans for growth. A good provider will size the service (whether broadband or dedicated internet access for business) based on real usage rather than simply offering the highest speed.
7. Should we ever have both broadband and a leased line?
Yes. Some businesses run a leased line as their primary link and keep business broadband or 4G/5G as a backup, so they’ve got a way to stay online if the primary connection fails.
Not sure which way to go? Get a plain-English connectivity review
Choosing between a leased line vs business broadband is really about matching connectivity to how your business works today and where it’s heading in the next few years.
If you’d like a view that’s clear and practical, you can ask Unite for a short connectivity review. Whether you’re in Newcastle, the North East or beyond, we’ll look at:
- How you’re using phones, Teams and cloud applications now
- Where performance or reliability is already under strain
- Whether smarter business broadband, a leased line, or a mix of both is the right move
We’re not here to push the most expensive option, we’re here to help you make the right call for your business.
Book a quick connectivity review and we’ll help you decide whether you truly need a leased line, or whether better broadband and setup will do the job. Local support, honest advice, no nonsense.