Demystifying the difference between Internet Leased line and Broadband connection.

We often find SMBs getting confused between an internet leased line connection or popularly referred to as ILL, and a broadband connection, and hence this article is to share some salient differences between them and how an ILL empowers businesses…

Shared vs Dedicated

The primary difference between the 2 is that the internet leased line is a dedicated connection exclusively for you, whereas the broadband is a shared connection. To draw an analogy, an ILL is like a dedicated pipe of water supplying exclusively to you and hence you have a constant flow and pressure and water. A broadband connection is like a pipe with multiple taps connected to it. The moment multiple taps are opened, the overall flow or pressure of water from each tap comes down proportionately. This is why, when you see any ad or broadband plan, they will always have Up to 10 Mbps, or up to 40 Mbps, etc. this primarily means that you will get you will 10 MBPs only if no one else in that entire pipe does not use the internet. Wishful thinking, right??

Fixed Bandwidth

The underlying message is that in broadband you will never have a stable speed as there are external factors determining this. Generally, different premises share similar links differently, bringing down speed and high inactivity rates. Regardless of whether you are getting a 76Mbps Connection, the speed will rely upon the number of individuals utilizing the Connection simultaneously. In ILL if you have subscribed to a say 10 MBPs plan, you will definitely get that bandwidth throughout and that’s applicable to upload and download speeds. Unlike in broadband where upload and download speeds vary.

Reliability

Another important thing you would look at is reliability. While most of the time the cables are underground, you could still find broadband cables are very loosely distributed over trees and poles, making them hugely vulnerable to constant cable cuts and turf wars between rival service providers. Your connection is again at the mercy of power availability at the junction box. If there is a power outage at any of the lines, it disrupts your connection.

This definitely is not the case in the case of ILL, which is fiber cables always laid underground.

Internet connectivity has today become our lifeline not just for productivity since most data is on the cloud, but also for entertainment with the switchover to OTT platforms. Hence the resolution time also becomes critical. While there is no clearly defined or documented SLA for broadband, resolution can take anywhere between few hours or few days, in the case of ILL the resolution times are very clearly defined, typically a few hours. Many a time, you don’t even need to log in a call for ILL, as the service provider would already be aware of the disruption and would’ve pro-actively started resolving it.

Limitless

Another important aspect is the metering of the data. In ILL you can upload and download any amount of data 24×7, 365 days a year at the same speed, in the broadband you have data plans as well. So, once you hit the threshold, the speeds automatically drop to what they call “fair usage policy.”
Other benefits you would get for ILL over broadband are low latency, a Static IP and point-to-point connectivity, inter-branch secure connectivity, etc.

So, What’s the catch?

Now that we have spoken about so many merits of the ILL, let’s talk about what do you stand to gain with broadband.
Well of course the most important is the cost factor. A 10MBPs ILL is typically about 1.2 Lakhs per annum I.e., about 10K per month, whereas broadband starts from as low as 1K per month, of course for lower bandwidth.
ILL also needs a minimum commit period of a year at the least, whereas no such commits happen in broadband, besides of course the scheme they might run.
ILL takes anywhere between 3 to 6 weeks for installation and commissioning whereas broadband could be up and running in as low as a day.

Conclusion

A company might lose out on certain things if there are gaps in transmitting and receiving data packets. This might harm competitiveness and work performance Internet Leased Line offers fixed transfer speed and symmetric rates. To avoid this, Nurture IT commonly implements ILL – Internet Leased Line into their activities to obtain stable and cost-effective internet access.

Reach out to us to get the required Speed with uninterrupted Internet Connectivity and Gain high reliability, stability, scalability.