The rise of cloud-native businesses has transformed the way UK companies operate. From SAAS platforms like Salesforce and Microsoft 365 to cloud infrastructure on AWS and Azure, more and more organisations are now dependent on the cloud for their day-to-day operations.
But with this reliance comes a critical challenge: connectivity. For businesses where every application and service is hosted online, poor internet performance can cripple productivity which is why leased lines have become the go-to choice for cloud-native companies in the UK.
In this blog, we’ll explore how leased line cloud services deliver the speed, reliability, and scalability needed to thrive in a cloud-first world.
What Is a Leased Line?
A leased line is a dedicated fibre connection provided directly to your business premises, and unlike standard broadband, it’s:
- Uncontended where bandwidth is reserved solely for your business.
- Symmetrical with equal upload and download speeds.
- SLA-backed with uptime guarantees (often 99.9%+) and rapid fault resolution.
This makes leased lines particularly suitable for cloud-native businesses, where both upload and download demands are critical.
Why Cloud-Native Businesses Need Leased Lines
Cloud-native organisations rely on uninterrupted access to online platforms, storage, and services, and here’s why we think that leased lines are the best fit:
1. Reliable SAAS access
From CRM like hubspot to collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams, SAAS platforms demand stable, low-latency connections and leased lines ensure applications run smoothly without the slowdown seen in contended broadband.
2. Seamless VoIP and video conferencing
Leased lines guarantee consistent bandwidth for high-quality voip calls and video meetings, free from jitter or dropouts, even during peak hours.
3. Optimised cloud storage and backup
With symmetrical speeds, large file uploads to platforms like Dropbox, onedrive, and Google Cloud are as fast as downloads, which is critical for teams working with big data or creative assets.
4. Direct connectivity to AWS and Azure
Many providers offer private cloud connectivity options over leased lines, enabling direct & secure access to cloud services like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.
5. Business Continuity
SLAs with guaranteed fix times (typically 4–6 hours) ensure that you can recover quickly from connectivity issues, protecting revenue and productivity.
Leased Line vs Broadband for Cloud Services
Feature | Leased Line | Standard Business Broadband |
Contention ratio | 1:1 (uncontended) | 10:1 to 20:1 (shared) |
Speeds | Symmetrical, 100Mbps–10Gbps | Asymmetrical, up to 1Gbps download but slower uploads |
Reliability | 99.9%+ uptime with SLA | Best-effort only, no guaranteed fix times |
Cloud performance | Consistent, reliable saas & voip | Variable, affected by congestion |
Security | Private, secure connection | Shared public infrastructure |
Best for | Cloud-native businesses, saas, voip, aws/azure users | Smaller smes with lighter needs |
UK Providers Offering Leased Line Cloud Connectivity
| Provider | Redundancy options | Dual carrier Support? | From |
| Diverse routing, dual links | Yes | £399 + redundancy |
| Dual-site connectivity | Yes | £400 + |
| Separate routes, SD-WAN | Yes | £450 + |
| Active-passive options | Limited | £300 + |
| Multi-site and resilient WAN | Yes | £375 + |
Real-World Example
Let’s make up an example that could be a realistic business… Let’s consider a digital marketing agency in Manchester running entirely in the cloud – before upgrading, the team struggled with:
- Laggy Zoom calls during peak hours.
- Slow uploads of creative files to shared cloud drives.
- VPN dropouts when remote staff connected to AWS.
After switching to a 1Gbps leased line, they gained:
- Smooth, uninterrupted video calls with clients.
- Upload speeds matching downloads for faster project delivery.
- Secure, stable connections to AWS and Azure for hosting campaigns.
The result: improved productivity, happier clients, and reduced downtime.
Preparing for the Future
As more businesses adopt cloud-first strategies, connectivity demands will only grow thanks to emerging technologies like AI, edge computing, and iot further increase the need for uncontended, reliable internet connections.
Leased lines aren’t just keeping up – they’re future-proof, offering scalability up to 10Gbps to support evolving business needs.
Final Thoughts
In the age of saas, voip, AWS, and Azure, we think that all cloud-native businesses cannot afford unreliable internet, and while we do think that 5G and broadband offer flexibility, only leased lines provide the uncontended, SLA-backed connectivity required for mission-critical operations.