Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) is a business internet service defined by a committed bandwidth rate (a committed information rate, or CIR), a business-grade SLA and connectivity to the whole internet, rather than the best-effort “up to” speeds of broadband. The access to your building may be a physically dedicated line or a logically separated service on shared infrastructure, such as Ethernet aggregation or some passive optical network (PON) products. Either way, your traffic shares the provider’s aggregation, backbone, transit and peering with its other customers, so where contention can occur depends on how the provider engineers its network. It is usually symmetrical (the same speed up and down), comes with static IP addresses, and is backed by a service level agreement (SLA) covering uptime and repair times. DIA is the standard choice for offices, data centers and sites where the internet connection is critical to the business.
At a glance
- The defining feature is a committed rate, not a private wire: access may be physically dedicated or logically separated, and the backbone and internet connections are shared.
- Upload and download speeds are usually the same, which matters for video calls, cloud backups and hosted services.
- An SLA sets targets for availability and repair time, with credits if the provider misses them.
- Most DIA is delivered over fiber; installation can take weeks or months if fiber is not already in the building.
- It costs significantly more than broadband per Mbps, so the right mix depends on how critical the site is.
What problem it solves
Business broadband (cable, fiber-to-the-premises or DSL) is shared. The provider sells more capacity than its network could carry if everyone used it at once, on the reasonable bet that they won’t. Most of the time that works. At busy hours, or when the neighborhood’s usage spikes, speeds drop, latency rises, and real-time traffic such as voice and video suffers. Broadband is also usually asymmetrical, so uploads are slower than downloads, and repair commitments are limited.
DIA removes most of those variables. The provider commits to your purchased rate rather than an “up to” speed, delivers the same speed in both directions, and commits to how quickly it will fix faults. For a site that runs on cloud applications, unified communications or hosted services, that predictability is what you are paying for. Your traffic still crosses the provider’s shared backbone and its links to other networks, so verify where contention can occur and where the committed rate and SLA are measured.
How it works
Access. The provider connects your building to its network, usually with fiber terminating on its equipment in your telecom room. Whether your address is on-net, near-net or off-net (classified by the provider as served from its own footprint, close to it, or reached over access it orders from another carrier) drives both cost and lead time. Off-net DIA uses a local access circuit from a different carrier, which adds a second party to every repair.
Port and committed rate. You buy a committed bandwidth, such as 100 Mbps, 1 Gbps or 10 Gbps, delivered on a port of equal or greater size. Some providers offer burstable billing, where you can use more than your commit and pay for the excess.
Addressing and routing. Most providers include a small static IPv4 block, with IPv6 often available. Sites with their own address space can run Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) with the provider to announce it, which is what makes multi-provider failover possible without changing addresses.
Service level. A typical DIA SLA covers availability, mean time to repair, and sometimes latency, jitter and packet loss across the provider’s own network. Credits are usually a percentage of the monthly charge and must often be claimed within a set window.
Add-ons. DDoS protection, managed routers and managed firewalls are commonly offered alongside DIA, sometimes bundled and sometimes priced separately.
For more on comparing providers and designing redundancy, see our Dedicated Internet Access solution page.
When it matters for buyers
- Opening or moving an office. Check DIA availability and lead times before you sign the lease; a building with no fiber can delay move-in.
- Moving phones and meetings to the cloud. Unified communications and contact center platforms depend on clean, symmetrical bandwidth.
- Relying on cloud applications or remote access. If staff cannot work when the internet is down, the connection is critical infrastructure.
- At renewal. Bandwidth prices tend to fall over time in competitive markets, so an older contract may be above current rates for the same bandwidth.
- After an outage. If a single connection has failed, review the repair commitment you actually have and whether a diverse backup is needed.
Questions to ask vendors
- Is our address on-net, near-net or off-net, and what is the realistic installation lead time?
- If off-net, which carrier provides the local access, and who owns troubleshooting end to end?
- What availability and repair-time commitments are in the SLA, how are credits calculated, and how do we claim them?
- Is our access physically dedicated or shared with other customers, where can contention occur, and between which points are the committed rate, latency and loss measured?
- Is the bandwidth fully symmetrical, and is burstable billing available?
- How many static IPv4 addresses are included, and is IPv6 supported?
- Can we run BGP with you to announce our own addresses?
- Is DDoS protection included, and what does it cover?
- What is the price escalator at renewal, and what are the early termination terms?
How it differs from IP transit
DIA and IP transit both deliver internet access with a committed rate and an SLA, and the line between them is blurry. DIA is usually sold to a business location, with provider-assigned addresses and a managed handoff. IP transit is usually sold to networks that run their own BGP routing and own their address space, typically as a port in a data center priced per Mbps. An enterprise with its own addresses may buy either, depending on where it connects.
Problems this helps with
- Internet slows down at busy times of day
- Video calls and VoIP break up on our current connection
- Uploads to cloud apps and backups take too long
- No one to call with any urgency when the internet goes down
