Dedicated internet access

Broadband services share capacity among many customers, so speeds vary with the neighborhood and support is best effort. Dedicated internet access gives one customer a fixed, symmetrical circuit, usually fiber, with a contract that specifies availability, latency, packet loss and how quickly faults are repaired, and credits when the carrier misses them.

For a growing business the trade is cost against predictability. Cloud phones, video meetings, AI agents and card payments all suffer when a shared connection slows at busy times, and the repair clock on broadband can run for days. DIA is usually paired with a cheaper secondary connection for failover rather than bought in pairs.

Ask for the service-level agreement in writing: guaranteed uptime, latency and loss, mean time to repair, and how credits are claimed. Ask whether the price includes the router, what the install interval and construction costs are, and whether the carrier can also deliver the backup over a separate path. Ask who you call late at night.