Wouldn’t it be great if there was a way to connect offices together using connections exclusive to your business?

This novel yet often overlooked concept has existed for some time. We call it a “leased line”, also known as a private circuit or data line. The reason it has felt unavailable to small to medium businesses in the past was because of huge start-up costs.

However, leased lines are now more affordable than they have ever been. Let us give you a crash course in how these fast exclusive connections could streamline your business.

2020 has affected everyone in this country in one way or another. Just when we felt some normality creep back into our lives, the news will quickly remind us of a new strain or lockdown incoming. We just cannot get away from it.

Office culture has been forever changed by the pandemic, for many companies life will never be the same even once we tame the virus. This could mean permanent work from home for all staff or staggered returns to just two days a week in the office.

Now, conversing with the managing director or the person you literally used to sit next to requires a connection. A connection is needed for a fully-fledged two-hour meeting and even the Monday morning catch-up.

Whether we communicate via email, Teams, or Zoom, what we require at all times is a reliable connection. When we use regular business broadband, we are also sharing with every other business in our area. From media startups to tech giants, they are all nabbing your precious bandwidth!

Picture this. You are at the pivotal moment of the Zoom meeting that finally offers you the promotion you dreamed of. It’s your turn to speak, you’ve rehearsed this for weeks. Halfway through your speech, the other members of your team are looking perplexed. Your connection has dropped, you sound like an idiot making a phone call in a train tunnel. But it’s not your fault, a 30 person strong graphic design company in the same postcode is all downloading a gargantuan update for Photoshop at the same time.

This is one of the many pitfalls of being on standard broadband. With a leased line, your connection is private; it is only for members of staff in your business. It can connect the offices of your sprawling team despite their geographical location.

As fiber broadband connections are being rolled out more frequently in the UK (fewer cars on the road have been a Godsend to broadband providers) leased lines are becoming more and more affordable. And there are less extra works needed to establish your connection thanks to the ever-expanding network.

At speeds of 10GB/s (yes, that’s GB, not MB) your business will have no trouble sending large data packets to individuals. You can even let staff download updates and important shared files off an internal server, getting everyone on the same page a lot quicker.

With a 99.9% uptime guarantee, a leased line is a safety net that your business can rely on 24 hours a day. You can use a leased line as a backup to a normal business connection, meaning that beyond an ‘act of God’ you will never ever lose a connection. Business exists online now more than ever and downtime simply means nothing can happen and as we all rebuild, none of us can afford that to happen.

Modern life was already heading this way, whether or not you like it, the world is simply evolving to exist online. The pandemic has simply been a catalyst for even faster change. It’s time to update your business for the instant-gratification generation or risk getting left behind.