Business connectivity
Point-to-Point Ethernet & Private Lines
A private line carries traffic between two of your own locations and nowhere else — layer 2 capacity that never touches the public internet, with the same committed rate at both ends.
We quote them between headquarters and branches, campuses and data centers, and buildings that a public path was never the right answer for.
- Service
- Layer 2 ethernet between two (or more) of your own locations
- Typical pairs
- Headquarters to branch · campus to data center · building to building
- Unit of scope
- The pair — both addresses, both handoffs, one committed rate
- Boundary
- We scope, procure and coordinate turn-up; the carrier operates the circuit
Get a quote
Point-to-point ethernet
Tell us where to reach you and a Uniqcli specialist follows up by email to scope the locations with you, then comes back with a written quote. Serviceability and the final figure are confirmed per location.
The first number is our real one, not an opening one.
Tell us the scope and we come back with the best price we can do on it.
- Supporting federal, state & local purchasers
- GPC & P-Card accepted
- TAA & NDAA-889 screening before every quote
Your traffic, between your buildings, off the public internet
Most site-to-site traffic today rides an encrypted tunnel across two internet circuits, and for a great many organizations that is the correct and economical answer. It stops being the correct answer when the traffic is large, constant or sensitive to variation — because a tunnel inherits every property of the two internet services underneath it, including the busy hour, the asymmetric upstream and the routing decisions nobody in your building controls.
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A point-to-point ethernet circuit removes all of that by not using the public internet at all: a committed rate between two named addresses, the same in both directions, behaving the same at four in the afternoon as it does at four in the morning. The starting rate we advertise belongs to dedicated internet access, not to private transport. Everything outside the starting rates above is sized rather than priced on a web page: the figure that binds is a written quote against your own addresses, terms and equipment list.
What a private line changes
Four things, and the first one is the reason the other three are worth paying for. Circuits are provisioned through our carrier network relationships and quoted per location; equipment is sourced through our distribution network.
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Naming a service type describes what we quote, not a partnership with any provider.
A path that is not the public internet
The traffic between your sites stays on provider infrastructure dedicated to carrying it, which changes both the performance conversation and the exposure conversation.
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It is not a compliance claim and we will not write it as one — what it is, is a materially smaller and better-understood path than a tunnel crossing networks nobody in the deal controls. Whether you also encrypt across it is a design decision worth making explicitly rather than assuming either way.
One committed rate, both directions, both ends
Private lines are symmetrical by construction, which matters most for the workloads that actually justify one: replication, backup between sites, imaging, file services and voice.
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The rate is committed rather than best effort, so capacity planning becomes arithmetic instead of observation. Sizing is set by what crosses the link at peak plus the growth you already know about, not by the size of either site's internet circuit.
Point-to-point, or any-to-any
Two sites is a straight point-to-point circuit. Three or more is where a multipoint service usually beats a mesh of individual links — a single logical layer 2 domain that every site joins, so adding the fourth building later is an order rather than a redesign.
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Which shape is cheaper depends on the sites and the provider, so we scope both when the count is above two.
The handoff and the equipment at both ends
A private line terminates on a switch port at each site, and the details that go wrong are mundane: media and connector type, whether VLAN tags pass transparently, whether jumbo frames are required by the storage traffic you are planning to run, and whether the existing switch has a port to spare at the right speed.
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All of it is scoped up front, and equipment is quoted through our distribution network where it is in scope. TAA (FAR 52.225-5) and NDAA §889 screening is performed on every hardware line, before the quote goes out.
Scope a site-to-site circuit
Go to the formWhat we'll ask at quote
A private line is quoted against a pair of addresses, so the scoping is short — but each of these changes the design rather than just the paperwork.
- Both full street addresses, with suite or floor, since serviceability is confirmed at each end independently and a pair is only as deliverable as its harder address
- The committed rate you are sizing for, and what drives it — replication, backup, voice, imaging, file services or general site traffic
- How many sites are in scope: a pair, or a group that might be better served by a multipoint service
- The handoff at each end: media, connector type and whether a port at that speed already exists on your switch
- Whether VLAN tags must pass transparently, and whether jumbo frames are required by anything you plan to run
- Whether the link needs protection, and what already fails over if it goes down
- Any latency requirement, and whether route diversity from an existing circuit has to be proven
- Your target term and turn-up date, and whether switching or routing equipment is in scope for the same quote
Private line versus a VPN across the internet
The tunnel is the default for a good reason: it costs nothing beyond the internet circuits you already pay for, it works everywhere both ends have connectivity, and modern edge hardware handles the encryption without complaint. For branch traffic, application access and ordinary file work, that is the whole answer, and we will say so rather than sell past it. The tunnel's weakness is inherited rather than intrinsic — it can only be as consistent as the two internet services carrying it, and the moment either end has a busy hour, an upstream ceiling or a bad routing day, the tunnel has one too.
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A private line is the purchase you make when that inheritance is the problem. The classic triggers are storage replication that has to complete inside a window, backup between sites competing with everyone's internet use, voice or video between buildings that has to be predictable rather than usually fine, and any link where the amount of data is large enough that pushing it through an internet circuit is distorting the sizing of that circuit. If any of those describe your situation, the comparison worth running is not tunnel versus private line in the abstract — it is what the private line costs against what you would otherwise spend upsizing two internet circuits to make the tunnel behave.
Where a route is long-lived and the capacity requirement is genuinely large, we can also scope dark-fiber leases alongside the lit options, so the choice between leasing capacity and leasing the strand itself is made with both numbers on the table rather than assumed one way. It is a narrower answer than it sounds — the economics only work on particular routes and particular terms — but it is worth asking rather than discovering afterwards that nobody checked.
The lanes either side of a private line
Site-to-site transport is normally scoped with the internet access at each end, and often with the wireless and physical security for the same buildings.
Private line questions
How do you deliver a private line — do you own the network?
No, and we will not describe it that way. Circuits are provisioned through our carrier network relationships and quoted per location; equipment is sourced through our distribution network. Naming a service type describes what we quote, not a partnership with any provider. What we bring is the scoping at both ends, sourcing the same pair of addresses from more than one provider, coordinating two turn-ups that have to land together, and one accountable relationship afterwards rather than two support numbers that each blame the other end. Assess, design, procure, support: we scope the requirement with you, design against it, source the circuits and equipment, and stay the single point of contact through turn-up and afterwards.
Is a private line encrypted?
Not by default, and it is important to be precise about that. A private line keeps your traffic off the public internet and on provider infrastructure dedicated to carrying it, which is a real and meaningful difference — but it is a path property, not a cryptographic one. If your data has to be encrypted in transit for policy or regulatory reasons, that is done at your own equipment on both ends and it belongs in the design from the start. We will scope it that way rather than let the word private do work it cannot do.
How fast can you get a quote back?
How quickly a quote comes back depends on how many addresses have to be checked and which carriers serve them; a single site is usually straightforward, and a multi-site scope moves at the pace of the slowest address. We tell you where each location stands rather than holding the whole quote for the last one.
We have four sites. Do we need four circuits?
Probably not. Above two locations, a multipoint ethernet service is often both cheaper and considerably easier to live with than a mesh of individual point-to-point links, because every site joins one logical layer 2 domain and the fifth building is an order rather than a redesign. Which shape wins depends on the specific addresses and which providers reach all of them, so we scope both and put the two options side by side.
Can you scope a dark-fiber lease instead?
Yes, as one option alongside the lit ones. Leasing the strand and lighting it yourself can be the better long-run answer on a route you will hold for years at high capacity, and it is a considerably worse answer on a short term at moderate capacity — the equipment, the optics and the operational responsibility all move to you. We scope it where the route and the term make it plausible, quote it beside the lit options, and say plainly which one we would take.
What service commitments come with it?
Service commitments are backed by the underlying carrier's published service terms, which are provided with your quote rather than summarized here. We publish no availability or latency figure of our own, on this lane or any other, because the commitment belongs to the provider carrying the circuit and it differs by product and by route. What you get with the quote is the relevant terms for each option, so a comparison between two providers is a real one rather than a comparison of marketing pages.
Send both addresses
A pair of addresses and the rate you are sizing for is enough to start. We check serviceability at each end, scope the handoff at both, and come back with written options — including the multipoint shape where more than two sites are involved.
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Everything outside the starting rates above is sized rather than priced on a web page: the figure that binds is a written quote against your own addresses, terms and equipment list.
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Scope a site-to-site circuit
Send the locations, the rate and what crosses the link. You get written options per pair — capacity, handoff at both ends, protection and term — with serviceability confirmed at each address before you commit. Service commitments are backed by the underlying carrier's published service terms, which are provided with your quote rather than summarized here.