subject: Leased Line [print this page] Some companies need to have access to the net 24 hours a day. This is ideal for universities, colleges, schools and businesses in which many different people are online for much of the time. However, the phone bills can get astronomic, even with a fast ISDN link. Therefore, a LEASED LINE is a better alternative if the amount of time any institution spends on the net is great. A leased line is a permanently open connection i.e. equivalent to being on line 24 hours a day. The price of a leased line is too expensive to be afforded by a home user, but it becomes inexpensive for an educational institute if the rate of hours on the phone line would be great. Indeed, compared to separate modems from many different computers it can be a positively cost-effective option. Usually the users would operate workstations in a LAN-based environment and have access to the net via a local server (called proxy server) which has been set up on site. The cost of the leased line varies from a few thousands of pounds a year for a typical 60 Mbps line. Although these options sound very expensive, don't forget that you now have 24 hour access and no phone bills. You must, of course, choose a service provider which allows you 24-hours access for a sensible cost, or have a direct Internet Connection without these the whole leased line exercise would be pointless.
With the above leased lines in mind, add a little extra hardware and you could actually set yourself up as an ISP, although I would not recommend this as it would be very hard work! However, in principle that's all that's necessary a high speed leased line, the hardware to interface many users and a powerful computer to handle the front-end communications. However, as people come to expect faster and faster access methods and ISDN in the home becomes more common, then the ISPs will have to respond with even faster-access services. Anyone providing less than a 100 Mbps backbone would probably not be able to cope with the technology that an increasing number of users will eventually have.
