Failover Line Cost

[TCTC]

Hi,

 

How much should I be paying for a 100/1000 Leased Line for a Failover Connection?

 

 

Is £400 a month a lot for something that hopefully won't be needed or is that standard?

 

Thanks

[Wave9_Lee]

Hi,

 

How much should I be paying for a 100/1000 Leased Line for a Failover Connection?

 

 

Is £400 a month a lot for something that hopefully won't be needed or is that standard?

 

Thanks

Depends somewhat on location and whether the provider is managing the failover/management or it's wires-only and you're looking after the failover element. In addition you want to ensure, if possible, that compared to your 'main' connection

 

A: Different Provider (i.e. Virginmedia + Openreach, or Cityfibre etc, so you have different duct in the road

B: Different technology (Leased Line + FttC/P) so it's naturally different routes

C: Different ISP (internet provider) so you have different logical routes to the Internet, different IP etc

D: Doesn't terminate on the same datacentre infrastructure as your main connection (i.e. hosted firewall and filtering unless you have some certainty that's all properly resilient and redundant)

 

You can spend a lot extra on trying to get diverse routing on 2 x Openreach fibre (long story) generally not worth it.

 

We configure all our backup/failover as active-active anyway, so you use both links at the same time - no dead money.

 

£2,750 - £3,000 per annum for 100/1000 over is available in some areas. Bear in mind you probably don't need the Gbps bearer for backup - the main function of a Gbps bearer is to allow for easy/quick/cheap upgrade to 200/300/500 etc. Which isn't something you'd really need for a second link. For some providers there's a higher rental for Gbps bearer than 100Mbps bearer, so a few quid to be saved there.

 

If you need some monitoring, managed failover etc, then the supplier will add a router and some support costs, hence the Q in paragraph 1.

 

Happy to send a quote over if you PM your address/post code - no problem

 

regards

 

Lee

[dhicks]

How much should I be paying for a 100/1000 Leased Line for a Failover Connection?

 

It's probably going to vary around the country, but I keep getting adverts offering gigabit leased lines ("from") £250 a month, so £400 a month does seem a bit high.

 

Might also be worth pointing out that satellite connections are now available - Starlink is around £75 a month, download speeds somewhere around 100 Magabits a second.

[slugshead]

Previously I bought a "failover line" a second 1000/1000 line for £600 a month. Ending up turning the LLB stuff on in Smoothwall, worked a treat with two internet connections actually being used rather than one sat there "just in case"

[titch]

Is anyone using 5g as an alternative? Don't have to worry about different routes etc if you backup is wireless?

[dhicks]

Is anyone using 5g as an alternative? Don't have to worry about different routes etc if you backup is wireless?

 

Good point - I use 5g broadband at home, which has been very reliable, and our second building with around 100 pupils / staff in used 5g for a while until we could get a leased line in. Depending on what, exactly, you mean by "failover" it might work okay - if you just need a connection to have some kind of internet access while the main connection (which possibly has a commerical-grade Service Level Agreement associated with it) gets fixed.

[dmj]

Those prices sound like they're a decade out of date

Depends on the area but you should be able to pick up a 500mb/s fibre business package for £65 /month.

[localzuk]

It really depends where you are. Prices are a lot higher in rural spots than they are in cities, for example.

 

We can't get £250pm leased lines here at all, for example. No FTTP here either, and some of our sites only get 40Mb/s FTTC.

[Aprice]

We tend to go for something like a BT business broadband connection as a backup line.

[Wave9_Lee]

Whilst it's an option I think there are a couple of issues with mobile data as a backup;

 

5G still not widely available

Speeds are variable depending on school location and where the dongle/router is situated - ideally you'd have an external antenna

No SLA on performance, speed or availability

Cost - data costs can be high on some plans

 

Additionally if the issue with your main connection is area wide such as a BT exchange outage key network backhaul, there will be many sites near you that are also without service - if lots of them jump on mobile at the same time, you can guess what happens to your throughput. Also worth noting that mobile mast sites will use a leased line connection to the local BT exchange or VMB Head-end for their backhaul.

[PaddyNewman]

Might also be worth pointing out that satellite connections are now available - Starlink is around £75 a month, download speeds somewhere around 100 Magabits a second.

 

I use Starlink as my primary ISP and given the recent launches, more population of LEO sats, I'm seeing regular speeds of 250-280 down and 35-40 up. In busier times (5pm to maybe 11pm) I see closer to 150/160 down and 30 up. It's viable for me, but one big download or hog and that quality goes in the toilet, for example if I download a game update, voice comms are dead in the water. Teams call and Windows update, game over.

 

Otherwise it's viable, if you just need a 'keep me afloat for 4 hours' connection in a school, sure I would take one. But £75 for the if and when, as well as having it fully powered on and ready, as well as needing an absolute crystal clear sky sight... I'd rather go 80/20 VDSL

[KK20]

we use a business 80/20 FTTC for our failover.. Our main is a 250/250 using P2P wireless, we have no FTTP and no trunking to get a reasonable connection up our geographically tricky location but at least we can get 80/20 on our copper. Our firewall does the failover portion and we use active-active (although I tend to divert the guest WIFI over the failover link unless the main is down). A low TTL DNS services looks after our external DNS (we host our own intranet and VPN) sorts the DNS failover (this emails me when it fails over so I know something has gone on, it emails me if NEITHER can be reached which only happens when I take the HA firewall down for some reason). SLA on the main, nothing on the failover but it is only a failover. I can count on one hand the number of times we have been on the failover only in the last few years so it is a worthwhile investment.

 

We pay £35 for the DSL and £350 for the 250/250 per month. I cant remember the firewall subscription per month nor the DNS but it isnt that much.

 

I would love to see these 500mb for £65 per month quotes and where they will supply. It would be worth paying the 30k to dig up the very long driveway if those can be installed as I can factor in a reasonable return cost into my proposal!

Edited November 21, 2022 by KK20

[Oaktech]

One of my schools has a £30 a month FTTC at around 80mb with a different provider on a manual changeover which works just fine in an emergency. The other has a secondary fibre line at 100Mb (primary is 800Mb) which is always active an they're combined in a load balancing config, I couldn't tell you if we'd failed over without going to look! We pay a shade under £120 a month for the 100Mb secondary line.

 

Both of those backups are leftovers from previous contracts that it was just a good idea to keep hanging around!

[TCTC]

Thanks All

 

I've been quoted at £400 for the first year and £280 for year two and three (three year contract)

 

Due to our location (which is rural) we're unable to get FTTC and I believe our only option would be a Leased Line.

[PaddyNewman]

Thanks All

 

I've been quoted at £400 for the first year and £280 for year two and three (three year contract)

Due to our location (which is rural) we're unable to get FTTC and I believe our only option would be a Leased Line.

 

I am very rural and they wanted £15k to consider getting me fibre (which is available 5 minutes down the road)

 

I figure leased line is just posh words for your own high speed/fibre line, which would be the same issue, no fibre - mega cost to you etc... happy to be wrong, but I went to various people as a "business" and best I got was bonded ADSL lines, no one came close to getting any form of FTTC/FTTP without a seriously big investment from my pocket.

[Wave9_Lee]

Happy to provide a quote if you like, no harm. Drop me a pm if it’s of interest.

 

cheers

[dhicks]

which is available 5 minutes down the road

 

Possibly within reach of a point-to-point wireless connection if you can come to some agreement with a person 5 minutes down the road?

[KK20]

you have to be careful with these sorts of agreements, especially for businesses. A good friend of mine had a very similar issue in Lancashire near the (as was then) new buckshaw village development , they used point to point wireless and came to an agreement with a business in the middle of buckshaw village. This went well until the lease holder got involved a few years later - apparently the business started to act as a repeater for others and it all went south badly. Ironically by this time the provider couldnt get permission to put a proper larger mast up in buckshaw as there was too much development so my friend lost out for a few years until other internet options arrived.

 

He ran a small dairy on the outskirts of the development so it was a business line.

Edited November 22, 2022 by KK20

[PaddyNewman]

Possibly within reach of a point-to-point wireless connection if you can come to some agreement with a person 5 minutes down the road?

 

I'd rather not be reliant on a person and their house/should they move/I heavily use my Starlink and would hurt their experience (unless they got a second line entirely) but being reliant on a service provider feels far less intrusive. Apparently its due to collapsed ducting from what the BT engineer that came out to install my super fast 10Mb line... its been that way for years. Unfortunate.