FTTP vs Leased Line: Which Is Right for Your Office?
FTTP (Fibre to the Premises) is fast, widely available full fibre broadband that's shared with other users in your area and usually offers much faster downloads than uploads. A leased line is a dedicated, uncontended connection with equal upload and download speed and a guaranteed service level agreement, at a higher monthly cost. Most small and medium offices do perfectly well on FTTP. A leased line earns its higher price when your business genuinely can't tolerate variable performance or downtime.
What Is FTTP?
FTTP delivers fibre optic cable all the way to your premises, rather than switching to copper for the final stretch the way older part-fibre broadband does. It's capable of high speeds — often several hundred megabits per second or more — at a relatively affordable monthly cost. The trade-off is that it's a contended connection, shared with other users in your area, and typically asymmetric, meaning download speeds are considerably faster than upload speeds.
What Is a Leased Line?
A leased line is a dedicated connection running exclusively to your business, with no contention and equal speed in both directions, backed by a guaranteed SLA. It costs more than FTTP and takes longer to install, but delivers consistent, predictable performance regardless of what's happening elsewhere in your area's network. Our guide to what a leased line is and whether it's worth it covers this in full.
Key Differences
| FTTP | Leased Line | |
|---|---|---|
| Contention | Shared with other local users | Dedicated, uncontended |
| Speed symmetry | Usually asymmetric (faster download than upload) | Symmetric (equal upload and download) |
| Typical cost | £30–£80 per month | £150–£650+ per month |
| Service guarantee | Best-effort, no formal SLA | Guaranteed SLA with fast fault response |
| Installation time | Often days to a few weeks | Typically 30–90 days |
| Best suited to | Most small and medium offices | Businesses where downtime has a real cost |
Which Is Right for Your Office?
FTTP is usually the right choice if:
- Your office runs standard business software, email, and occasional video calls without issue
- Occasional slower periods during peak local usage wouldn't seriously disrupt your day
- Cost efficiency matters more than a guaranteed SLA
- You want a quicker, simpler installation
A leased line is worth the extra cost if:
- You rely heavily on VoIP calling and can't tolerate inconsistent call quality — our guide to VoIP bandwidth requirements explains why upload speed and consistency matter so much here
- Multiple people regularly upload large files or use cloud-hosted desktops simultaneously
- Any downtime has a direct, measurable cost to your business
- You need a provider genuinely accountable to a fast-response SLA, not best-effort support
Can You Use Both Together?
Yes, and it's an increasingly common setup. Some businesses run a leased line as their primary connection with an FTTP or mobile broadband line as automatic failover, giving the reliability of a dedicated connection with a safety net if it ever goes down. This is worth discussing with a provider directly, since it needs the failover configured properly to switch over without manual intervention.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is FTTP good enough for VoIP calling? For most small and medium businesses, yes, particularly with Quality of Service properly configured. Businesses with heavy call volumes or genuinely mission-critical calling sometimes benefit from a leased line's guaranteed bandwidth instead.
Why is upload speed such a big deal for a leased line vs FTTP? VoIP calls and video conferencing need roughly equal bandwidth in both directions. FTTP's typically weaker upload speed can become a bottleneck under heavy simultaneous use, which a leased line's symmetric speed avoids entirely.
Is a leased line always more reliable than FTTP in practice? It's not that FTTP is unreliable — it's that a leased line comes with a guaranteed SLA and dedicated bandwidth, removing variability that FTTP, as a shared service, can occasionally experience during peak times.
Can I upgrade from FTTP to a leased line later if my business grows? Yes, this is a common path — many businesses start on FTTP and move to a leased line once usage and reliability requirements genuinely justify the extra cost.
The right connection depends entirely on how much your business actually depends on it. Request a quote for independent advice on which fits your office, or read our full leased line guide for more detail on cost and setup.
