Business broadband and leased lines for recruitment agencies
A recruitment office is an unusual connectivity load: dozens of simultaneous voice streams, constant CRM traffic, video interviews, and a shared drive full of documents, all at once. Most agencies buy a broadband circuit on headline speed and then wonder why calls break up at eleven in the morning. Speed is not the metric that matters here — consistency, upstream capacity and prioritisation are.
- Sized for simultaneous calls, not headline download speed
- ConcurrencySized for simultaneous calls, not headline download speed
- 4G or 5G backup so a circuit fault does not silence the floor
- Failover4G or 5G backup so a circuit fault does not silence the floor
- Quality of service so voice is never fighting video for capacity
- PrioritisedQuality of service so voice is never fighting video for capacity
- Circuits sized on concurrent call count, upstream capacity and everything else the office does.
- FTTP, SOGEA or Ethernet leased line chosen on the actual requirement rather than on price alone.
- Automatic 4G or 5G failover so a fault becomes an inconvenience instead of a lost day.
- Voice prioritised across the network and the Wi-Fi, which is where most call quality complaints originate.
Why recruitment floors break broadband
The specific characteristics of a dialling floor are what catch out a standard business broadband purchase.
- Voice is upstream-heavy, and most consumer-style broadband is sold on downstream speed with a fraction of that upstream.
- Concurrency is high and sustained. Thirty consultants on calls is thirty simultaneous streams, all of which are sensitive to jitter and packet loss.
- Video interviews and client calls arrive at exactly the same time as peak dialling.
- Cloud CRM, Microsoft 365 and file access are competing for the same circuit continuously.
- Wi-Fi is often the real bottleneck — a softphone on a congested access point sounds exactly like a bad phone line.
- Nobody notices a degraded circuit until a client call drops, by which point it has been happening for weeks.
Choosing the right circuit
There is no universally correct answer, only the right fit for the site and the headcount. Honest comparison below.
- Typical characteristics
- Lower cost, limited and asymmetric upstream
- Best fit
- Small offices, or as a secondary circuit only
- Typical characteristics
- High speed, better upstream, shared access network
- Best fit
- Most small and mid-sized recruitment offices
- Typical characteristics
- Symmetrical, dedicated, service level agreement with fix times
- Best fit
- Larger floors, multi-site groups, sites where downtime is costly
- Typical characteristics
- Independent path, automatic failover
- Best fit
- Every site that cannot afford a silent morning
The key difference at the top end is not speed but contention and contract: a leased line is dedicated and carries a service level agreement with defined fix times, which is what you are actually buying.
Want this looked at on your own setup?
A review is free, there is no obligation, and you keep the written summary either way.
The legacy connectivity deadline
The UK’s traditional PSTN and ISDN services are being retired on 31 January 2027, and Openreach has been operating a national stop-sell on new legacy copper products in exchanges where full fibre availability has passed the qualifying threshold. For most agencies this is an opportunity rather than a threat.
- Legacy voice lines and copper-based broadband both need migrating within the same programme.
- It is the natural moment to size connectivity properly rather than repeating an inherited order.
- Analogue lines running alarms, lifts, door entry and card terminals are frequently missed in audits — they need checking too.
- Leaving it late means competing for engineering appointments with everyone else who also left it late.
What we design beyond the circuit
A circuit on its own does not deliver call quality. The network behind it does.
- Quality of service configuration so voice traffic is prioritised over file transfers and video.
- Business-grade Wi-Fi designed for the floor plan and the device count, not a consumer access point in a corner.
- Cloud-managed firewalls with segmented networks for staff, guests and any interview rooms.
- Monitoring, so degradation is spotted and raised before a consultant complains.
- Home-worker guidance for the consultants whose domestic broadband is the actual weak link.
Connectivity review checklist
- Peak concurrent call count per site, plus expected headcount growth.
- Current upstream capacity, and whether it has ever been measured under load.
- Whether video interviews run at the same time as peak dialling.
- Existing circuit type, contract end date and notice period.
- Whether any failover exists today, and whether it has ever been tested.
- Wi-Fi coverage and access point age across the floor.
- Every analogue line on site and what is actually plugged into it.
Frequently asked questions
How much bandwidth does a recruitment office need?
It depends on concurrent calls and everything else running alongside them, which is why we size it rather than quote a number. Voice streams are modest individually but must be consistent; the more important questions are upstream capacity, contention and whether voice is prioritised.
Do we need a leased line?
Not always. A larger floor, a multi-site group, or any site where a morning of downtime is expensive usually justifies one — mainly for the dedicated capacity and the service level agreement. Many smaller offices are well served by FTTP with proper failover, and we will say so.
Our calls break up occasionally. Is that the phone system?
Usually not. In our experience intermittent call quality problems are most often local — Wi-Fi congestion, an undersized or contended circuit, or no traffic prioritisation. That is diagnosable with monitoring rather than guesswork, and it is one reason we prefer to provide voice and connectivity together.
What happens if the circuit fails completely?
With failover configured, traffic moves to a mobile data path automatically. Because the phone platform is cloud-based, we can also re-route numbers to mobiles or another site immediately, and consultants can keep working from home on the same numbers.
Related recruitment guides
Get your floor’s connectivity sized properly
We will measure what you have, size what you need for peak dialling, and design failover so a circuit fault is never a lost morning.
- Full audit of every line, number and contract you hold
- Honest view of what your CRM will and will not integrate with
- The call data you are not currently seeing, including missed inbound
- A written summary — yours to keep either way