Can you afford to wait for ultrafast broadband?

Almost every business needs to be connected to the world of the web but some require more capacity and higher speeds than others.

One popular solution recently has been to opt for a leased line. This is a dedicated network connection that physically connects two locations. Leased lines are ‘uncontended’, meaning you are not sharing the connection with other businesses and consumers.

This in turn means your contracted speeds should be guaranteed, even at peak times and can also provide symmetric speeds for downloading and uploading data.

The increase in the number of businesses opting for leased lines comes due to the enhanced security measures it provides – with no one else using the line apart from your business, you can be sure that your data and files are completely safe.

There’s no denying that leased lines can be expensive however and they’re certainly not the optimum solution for every business. If you’re waiting for a more affordable, high street version of ultrafast broadband however, you could be waiting a while.

Last summer BT announced plans to trial its fibre to the remote node (FTTRn) system in London’s burgeoning Tech City area and selected rural locations.

At the time local MP Meg Hillier said:

As I have said to the prime minister in the past month, broadband is a national embarrassment and action is urgently needed. In Tech City, the much trumpeted European hub of technology, businesses are moving out because they simply cannot access high-speed broadband.”

Last month BT further announced that the hybrid-fibre G.Fast technology would be trialled in the summer in Huntington (Cambridgeshire) and Gosforth (Newcastle). They plan to roll the technology across the country starting in 2016/17 and will aim to deliver speeds of up to 500Mb/s to “most of the UK” within a decade.

This is good news for businesses requiring faster connections that are currently widely available. Leased lines typically go from 2Mb/s to multiple Gb/s so G.Fast would fall somewhere in the mid leased line range. But, with the timetable for deployment still consisting of mostly blank spaces however, businesses will have to consider their current requirements and whether they can really afford to wait for the rollout.