Leased Line recommendations?

Kushan · 02-07-2013, 09:36

Sorry if this is off-topic for a consumer orientated broadband forum, but I figured there'd be a few people here in the know.

Our office is looking to get a leased line as we only have ADSL here and it's just not cutting it. I've made a few inquiries and have a rough idea of what to expect, but before I go to present my findings to the bosses, I wondered if anyone had any recommendations on who the best provider is? Any horror stories or people I should avoid, that sort of thing?

Cost is a big concern, but we're not necessarily looking for the cheapest if they have a better SLA (for example).

I've been mainly pricing 50mbit and 100mbit (on a 100mbit trunk), if that has any bearing.

MovedGoalPosts · 02-07-2013, 10:47

Leased lines may not be your only option.

You can get bonded ADSL so that more than one ADSL line runs together giving you greater capacity. The significant issue is most ADSL services, even those intended for business, don't have good SLA.

You may be in an area with BT have rolled out their Fibre services, in which case they and perhaps others could offer you a fibre based service?

Kushan · 02-07-2013, 11:02

Thanks, Rob. As you said, the issue we're having is that our ADSL service isn't really reliable enough. The company has just landed a big contract and we have our own SLA's to adhere to now, so we're investing in a much more resilient connection.

Fibre isn't in the area yet, although it's being rolled out "soon" (The cabs have been installed near the office at least). Still, we're not sure on time frames and given that we're more interested in the resiliency aspect, a leased line seems the best option.

jamiefrost · 02-07-2013, 11:50

We use Zen internet, 10mb/10mb on a 100mb carrier, no problems what so every. Takes around 3 months to get installed.

We have a total of 3 Fibre connections to fora resilient connection to our head office including a MPLS line, these are not supplied by Zen but done globally by the company.

The ADSL offering on the business park was so slow it was unusable for what we wanted to do. So we had to go for a leased line as there were no other options such as Ethernet First Mile (EFM).

In the end all three lines were installed by openreach engineers just paying different people along the way.

J

Uncle Peter · 02-07-2013, 11:56

EFM

Kushan · 02-07-2013, 12:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by jamiefrost

We use Zen internet, 10mb/10mb on a 100mb carrier, no problems what so every. Takes around 3 months to get installed.

We have a total of 3 Fibre connections to fora resilient connection to our head office including a MPLS line, these are not supplied by Zen but done globally by the company.

The ADSL offering on the business park was so slow it was unusable for what we wanted to do. So we had to go for a leased line as there were no other options such as Ethernet First Mile (EFM).

In the end all three lines were installed by openreach engineers just paying different people along the way.

J

Thanks, I'm waiting on a quote from Zen as they're our current ISP. Everyone else got me a quote within the hour, Zen has been taking their sweet time though (called them about 4 yesterday, still got nothing back).

jamiefrost · 02-07-2013, 12:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kushan

Thanks, I'm waiting on a quote from Zen as they're our current ISP. Everyone else got me a quote within the hour, Zen has been taking their sweet time though (called them about 4 yesterday, still got nothing back).

Took a while, but the customer service was good during the installation phase with updates etc, most of the time to install was the time required to provision the line.

J

Kushan · 04-07-2013, 09:35

Well, I had to call Zen a second time just to get a quote off of them. Not exactly great service, but sadly they've ended up being the most expensive by quite some margin. They don't even offer the equipment for free.

Uncle Peter · 04-07-2013, 10:44

Try Stratogen, they have cut us good deals in the past on a couple of our remote locations.

http://www.stratogen.net/products/leased-line.html

Also, why not EFM if you're in an sDSL area? you're looking at around 300PCM with potentially free setup depending on the contract

Matthew · 04-07-2013, 21:21

Have a chat with Virgin re their business packages, they do some good packages if you are in their area.

Kushan · 04-07-2013, 21:32

Virgin are actually the cheapest provider so far. However, their sales rep has been useless and I've had to email him numerous times to get specific answers and such. Not a great impression.

Nowhere Man · 05-07-2013, 10:42

It's important to get the right advice when it comes to entering into a lengthly and expensive leased line contract, and also know that you're going to get the right kind of technicaal support with a decent SLA.

Some of the larger companies tend to use a ticketing system with support staff who work from a flow chart, and when they get to the end of the flow chart, they escalate the incident to a different department. This can be very frustrating indeed.

There are several medium sized ISP's out there who have a great reputation and also keep all of their technical sales and support staff in house.

I've had the pleasure of working with a company called CCS (Leeds) ltd who by all accounts, have an excellent reputation in all of the above.

Kushan · 05-07-2013, 12:03

I completely agree with you, Nowhere Man.

Strangely enough, a company called Spitfire has suddenly put in an offer that's dirt cheap by comparison to the rest of the providers, more than £130 cheaper than Virgin who were the cheapest previously.

MovedGoalPosts · 05-07-2013, 12:59

I know nothing of Spitfire other than they seem to have an aggressive radio advertising campaign at the moment.

Virgin Media can be a good consideration simply due to the independence of their infrastructure against any other company. As data access becomes increasingly vital for all companies it can be good to have a VM solution together with an alternative network as this provides some redundancy and resilience. But of course you are then adding costs. It may depend on the amount of capacity you need whether two external networks can be run alongside each other with a dual WAN internal network.

Uncle Peter · 05-07-2013, 13:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rob

I know nothing of Spitfire other than they seem to have an aggressive radio advertising campaign at the moment.

Virgin Media can be a good consideration simply due to the independence of their infrastructure against any other company. As data access becomes increasingly vital for all companies it can be good to have a VM solution together with an alternative network as this provides some redundancy and resilience. But of course you are then adding costs. It may depend on the amount of capacity you need whether two external networks can be run alongside each other with a dual WAN internal network.

At leased-line cost levels I would class the availability of PoP diversity as a pre-requisite to shelling out the extra shillings for an backup circuit.