EFM or Leased Lines?

EFM (Ethernet in the First Mile) and leased lines offer guaranteed bandwidth with high availability

Making a choice between EFM and leased lines can be a challenge – but there are a few key differentiators which can help us determine which ones is best for each business.

Choose EFM

As with leased lines, EFM delivers a high speed, reliable Internet connection to your business. Technically, the difference is that EFM uses copper pairs to connect to the local exchange, whereas leased lines utilise fibre.

This results in EFM being much more cost effective, but still very resilient. The installation for EFM is a much simpler process too, with lead times generally being a lot quicker than lease lines.

EFM avoids the large excess charges associated with traditional fibre, so you can reduce costs, whilst boosting your connectivity and can expect to save as much as 60% of your existing leased line costs.

EFM is very resilient due to its copper infrastructure. If you lose connectivity on one copper pair, the others remain live, retaining 75% of the bandwidth. Our 7 hour SLA means and 24/7 support means that we are always just a call away from fixing any issues.

Choose Leased Lines

Leased lines (also known as Ethernet Over Fibre) are the highest grade of data connectivity currently available in the UK.

The private line only carries communications and traffic from your company, resulting in a guaranteed level of service. The line can be used for data, video and voice and is most effective when sharing bandwidth hungry applications between different offices. High-speed connections up to 1GB are available. 

Leased lines run over fibre-optic technology, which is the most sophisticated method for transferring data. Fibre optics use light pulses to transport data down fibre lines, and cost much less to maintain than traditional copper lines. Today, all core networks are based on fibre due to its high-speed capacity and greater defiance to electromagnetic noise.

Conclusion

Internet services should be chosen on a case-by-case method. Whether you need EFM or a leased line comes down to your personal business requirements. If you’re looking for a dedicated connection with a quick installation, but, do not require the highest grade of speed, then you should consider EFM. The cost of EFM is also cheaper than leased lines, making it cost effective too.

However, if complete scalability and flexibility are important to you, then you should consider a leased line. The speeds you can achieve in both directions are much higher than anything else in the UK market today (test your current internet speed now). The lead time is longer, but you’ll be getting your very own secure and private connection that is solely used by your business.

For more help with choosing your next connection contact us and one of our consultants will advise you on which is best for your business.

For further advice about how a dedicated connection could benefit your business contact us.