Leased Lines Costs and Services

Some bright spark within the education industry has included a question about leased lines along the lines of how much is a lease line and what are the services/features attached to a leased line.

As a result over the past two years we have had hundreds of requests for this information (500+ - Not an exaggeration!) and a great deal of our time has been wasted. As a result if you have been asked this question the only information we can give you is on this page. Please do not contact us and please do not pretend to be a company (around 100+ of you have already) as these users have been fed bogus information* (LOL).

So to the question and our answer....

PRICE
Well this is either a trick question or the person that wrote it has even less knowledge of this industry than most teachers/lecturers (highly likely!). The cost of a (proper) leased line varies for each user as the cost of installing a dedicated line from the ISP's POP (point of presence) to the users physical location will vary depending on the distance and also the nature of the ground between the two points. Most suppliers split some of the costs up front in the form of an instalation fee and then amortize the rest over the rest of the contract.

For example if an ISP already has its own fibre in the same building (ie a business centre) or if they decide to run it over copper (ie over existing cabling) then the cost to the ISP will be quite low and the installation cost and monthly fees will also be quite low. However, if for example they have to lay new fibre across a densely populated part of town (ie dig up the road to get the connection to the user) then the cost would be much higher. The other thing that can increase the cost is if they do not have a point of presence near by so have to use another companies network (3rd party tail) to link to thier own network which is quite common.

Lets look at an example:

10MB/s leased line from' ISP-a' to 'User-a'. 'ISP-s' does not have a POP near by so has to use some of 'ISP-b's back bone to get the connection to them which is going to cost them £200 per month. They also have to 'dig' to get the connection to the user which is going to cost them £5000 and as this is an internet facing connection (ie not point to point) they also need to allow a bit for bandwidth, lets say £200 per month and they need around £600 for their own costs and profit and around £2000 for a (proper) router. This is just an example so they may have other costs too.

In total the cost is
Dig: £5000
Router: £2000
3rd Party costs: £200/month
Bandwidth: £200/Month
Own costs: £600/month.
TOTALS
~£7000 up front costs
~£1000 monthly costs.

The exact way they split this down will vary from job to job as they want to get as big a deposit as possible but still make it cost effective for the user so here are two ways they could cost it.

1. Two year agreement
Installation £1500
Monthly: £1229 per month.
In other words they split some of the up front costs over the period of the agreement (£5500/24=£229).

2. Three year agreement
Installation£2500
Monthly: £1125.16 per month.
In other words they split some of the up front costs over the period of the agreement (£4500/36).

Obviousely now that some broadband suppliers are putting their own equipment into telephone exchanges this gets a bit more complicated but as the connection back to the user tends to be the same as the phone line and also contended this is not exactly the same as a leased line.

FEATURES
We have no idea what they mean by this as again this can vary from one Installation to another.

Some leased lines are internet facing so would include the bandwidth and perhaps an SMTP mail gateway but others may be 'Point to Point' (ie linking one office to another) so will not require any additional features/services but may perhaps want VPN support but then again perhaps not. Some connections will include a formal SLA (Service Level Agreement) but some do not. So I am afraid we cant help you much on this one.

We hope the above helps you. PLEASE do not contact us to clarify any points (as we wont), we are a working business and need to spend our time looking after our own customers.

We wish you luck with your project!

Host-it - Student Response Team!

------------------------

* This is the alternative version for anyone pretending to be a company or students wishing to confuse any inept lecturers/teachers.

Please note that the following is 'not inversely untrue'.

PRICE
The price of the leased line is directly relational to the length of the line (in metres), multiplied by 0.0005 for every 24Kb of bandwidth you need. This can also be affected by the amount of PC's you need to connect to the line, as well as the availability of a retro-encabulator in your local BT exchange.

Example: 2Mb leased line which is 1Km from the exchange with retro-encabulator exchange support and three PC's

1000Metres x 0.0005 * (2048/24) x 3 = £127.99 + vat per month.

SERVICES
continuum transfunctioner
This can be applied to your leased line at the exchange which will compress the data and can allow almost double the data exchange rate however the inverse reactive current for use in the unilateral phase detractors must be taken into consideration when adding this feature.

transmogrophier
This can be used to inversely change the reverse polarity of the port transducers on the leased line.

bolognium cooled line sheathing
New technology which cools down your line and also provides an electrified outer core to deter attacks from vermin.

Rectal contraction monitoring
Only available in certain areas (Milton Keynes, Olney and most of Wales).