Do we need a leased line?

The company I work for needs a new phone system and its been recommended that we go for a VoIP system which is fine but as part of the deal we are also being recommended to switch to a 50Mbps leased line on 3 year contract which is very expensive compared to our current FTTC 80/20 business service. I should also mention that Openreach have been digging outside our premises recently and apparently one of their guys told a co-worker it was in preparation for FTTP. I've been out of the broadband loop for a while so I was hoping to get some opinions on whether a leased line is overkill or not? I do appreciate the advantages (uncontended, symmetrical, low latency, SLA, etc) but these advantages are expensive! Some pertinent details:

Small business - between 6 to 10 people depending on the season.
Current FTTC speed tests averaging out at around 40-50 Mbps down, 8-12 Mbps up. Average latency around 30ms.
Average small business internet use: email & attachments, web, occasional video calls over Skype etc. Not sure of monthly usage but would guess less than 100GB. If we lose internet for a few hours or even a day it would be frustrating but manageable, it would have only a minimal impact on our business.
We have managed on FTTC and (ADSL previously) for many years without real issue, so main reason for this upgrade is to facilitate a VoIP system.

And questions:
Is leased line overkill for VoIP plus usage described above?
Does 50Mbps leased line mean 50Mbps throughput?
Is there a way to check when FTTP will be available? (I'm not convinced co-worker got facts right).
What is the upload/download of typical FTTP business service?
What is typical install & monthly costs of FTTP business service?
What is typical business contention ratios during the day these days? I know it used to be 20:1 but I believe no longer calculated at the local level in the way it was before.

I'm interested in the FTTP aspect because if FTTP will indeed soon be available then this may be a better fit than leased line for our particular needs.

If you can live without internet for a few hours, and the current service is fine for current usage, then stick with it! No need to pay for a leased line.

Find a VoIP provider that has a decent mobile phone app so you can still take business calls using mobile data if the FTTC goes down. For example, we use RingCentral for calls at my work.

Who is recommending the leased lne?

If you are worried about loss of service, upgrade your current FTTC service to a BT Business service with a 4G back-up so that if the copper line goes down your service will transfer across to the 4G - you may not get teh same bandwidth but will be able to handle urgent business.

The extra cost is very, small.

Put it this way. The office I work in has around 30 people on average in it, we use Cisco for our phone services, Webex and Skype for video conferencing and we only have a 10 Mbps leased line with an ADSL backup.

The backup can cause a bit of a problem because it's only hits 4 Mbps down and and around 1 Mbps up.

In reply to a post by office123:

Is leased line overkill for VoIP plus usage described above?

In your company's situation, yes. One of the main advantages of leased lines are the super quick fault fix times (SLA) - which can be as quick as 2 hrs. So ideal for companies such as online traders who may suffer financial loss in the event of a fault.

In reply to a post by office123:

Does 50Mbps leased line mean 50Mbps throughput?

You would need to check with the supplier. Otherwise if 50 Mbps refers to the connection speed, you'd be looking at ~ 45 Mbps throughput after overheads.

In reply to a post by office123:

What is the upload/download of typical FTTP business service?

Anywhere from 40/10 to 1000/220 Mbps. You can only order 500 Mbps or above on FTTP if your exchange supports these speeds, otherwise you would be limited to 330/50.

In reply to a post by office123:

What is typical install & monthly costs of FTTP business service?

Depends on what you're willing to pay. For £250+ pm you can get 1000/220 Mbps on FTTP (if your exchange supports it) or for less than £50 pm you can get 40/10 on FTTP. In the middle, 330/50 costs anywhere between £50-£150 pm. Install time can vary from few weeks to few months (if service is available to order).

In reply to a post by office123:

What is typical business contention ratios during the day these days? I know it used to be 20:1 but I believe no longer calculated at the local level in the way it was before.

Contention ratios are no longer provided by CPs, however its still a shared service. BT Retail, for example, guarantee a minimum speed of 100 Mbps on their 330/50 FTTP service.

If your company is after a VOIP service, then I would highly recommend yay.com (no i don't work for them lol). They're primarily a business VOIP provider, not the cheapest out there but great for business line features and with top class UK based support.

If you are only a 10 person organisation then your maximum active call traffic is likely to be 800kbps (10x80kbps) plus some signalling overhead - much less than your current broadband and so in itself unlikely t require a leased line.

A leased line is one option, and allows for much more stringent SLAs, both in terms of availability and performance, but at a cost.

Have you looked at e.g. Andrews and Arnold Office::1 product which provides multiple lines for resilience. They also offer VOIP services which will run over that connection (or independently). NB other providers do offer similar services

In reply to a post by office123:

The company I work for needs a new phone system and its been recommended that we go for a VoIP system which is fine but as part of the deal we are also being recommended to switch to a 50Mbps leased line on 3 year contract which is very expensive compared to our current FTTC 80/20 business service. I should also mention that Openreach have been digging outside our premises recently and apparently one of their guys told a co-worker it was in preparation for FTTP. I've been out of the broadband loop for a while so I was hoping to get some opinions on whether a leased line is overkill or not? I do appreciate the advantages (uncontended, symmetrical, low latency, SLA, etc) but these advantages are expensive! Some pertinent details:

By chance, it's not BT Local Business that are telling you you need a new phone system and naturally a leased line is it?

Our phone system, which like yours never goes above 10 users at a time, is all done over FTTC, and works just fine. The line has only ever gone down once, and our 4G backup kicked in straight away and took over until it was restored. It was barely noticeable. We use a Draytek router, all self set up, that automatically flicks over to 4G if the VDSL has a problem. I'd say that unless you're a big call centre, a leased line is not necessary.

In fact, in the same amount of time that we've had this in place, someone I know that uses a leased line for their business has had three outages. The only difference is that he gets a bit of compensation for loss of service.

You should talk to Blizzard Telecoms.
They sell broadband products with better response times for business critical systems.
Also they guarantee call quality if you have their broadband and VoIP.
Its what we use where I work and we have had zero issues.

office123

If you post your postcode or if this is too descriptive of your location your town /city area. Someone may be able to tell you the likelihood of getting FTTP as some areas are having Fibrefirst rollout in areas already covered by FTTC, otherwise this would be quite unusual for your speed FTTC.

The leased line pressure sounds very like a salesman selling a high commission product that you don't really need. As others have said your existing FTTC connection can handle your requirements with ease. Only point of contention is likely to be Skype calls at a busy phone time ( due to upload issues). IF this happens just get a second FTTC connection this would be far cheaper than a leased line.

For leased line comparisons you could always ask for a FTTPoD quote to see what that would cost.