Anyone with their ear to the ground will have heard that frustration with standard broadband connections is growing. Indeed, a recent Ofcom study showed that 23% of participants were unhappy with their broadband connections’ abilities to perform certain functions, while the businesses quizzed said that their dissatisfaction was such to make them consider new ways of connecting to the internet.

One way of achieving markedly faster and more stable broadband speeds is by getting a leased line. However, the cost of leased lines is traditionally high, making their viability very much dependent on the size of the business. Another, more cost effective alternative is to invest in SDSL, which often comes in at a fraction of the cost of a leased line.

SDSL provides vastly improved upload and download speeds and unlike its close relative ADSL, both of these speeds remain equal, making the connection more stable and better for uploading. This is useful for companies who have a lot of ‘two-way traffic’ passing through their servers, not to mention those who value quicker browsing. Often, SDSL speeds can be around four times as fast as a typical ADSL connection.

One drawback of SDSL, and a reason why businesses are still drawn to leased line and even bonded ADSL (where two or more ADSL lines are figuratively tied together to create a new, fast connection) is that its availability is currently limited to certain exchanges, meaning you can’t get it everywhere. However, the number of SDSL-ready exchanges is growing all the time and with the current top speeds sitting at a respectable 6Mbps in both directions, it is easy to see why more and more business users are switching away from traditional broadband networks and towards alternatives such as SDSL.

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