Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) vs business broadband: which is right for your business?

• What is Dedicated Internet Access (DIA)?
• What is business broadband?
• DIA vs business broadband
• Is DIA or broadband right for your business?
• Dedicated Internet Access solutions

What is Dedicated Internet Access (DIA)?

Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) is a private, high-speed connection between your premises and the internet. It’s an uncontended connection, meaning you don’t share bandwidth with other customers and don’t suffer from network congestion. In addition, DIA offers guaranteed symmetrical download and upload bandwidth, ensuring a fast, low latency connection.

Delivering speeds up to 10Gbps, DIA is ideal for organisations that need a fast, reliable internet connection to run business-critical operations.

Learn more about DIA

What is business broadband?

Unlike DIA, business broadband provides a shared connection that distributes the bandwidth between multiple users in a local area. Typically, it offers asymmetrical upload/download bandwidth using one of the following technologies:

• Fibre to the premises (FTTP): Also known as ‘full fibre’, the fibre connection runs all the way to a customer’s business. FTTP typically provides upload/download speeds up to 1Gbps/220Mbps.
• Fibre to the cabinet (FTTC): The fibre cabling runs to a curbside cabinet, where it’s distributed to individual businesses via copper wires. FTTC delivers speeds up to 80Mbps/20Mbps.

However, FTTC is being phased out as the UK government aims to have full fibre installed in 85% of premises by 2025 and nationwide coverage by 2030. So FTTP is now the norm for new business broadband connections.

But is FTTP enough for your organisation’s daily operations, or do you need a dedicated line?

DIA vs business broadband

Dedicated Internet Access offers several advantages over business broadband, although it costs more than FTTP. Here’s a breakdown of how they compare.

DIA vs business broadband

In short, DIA offers a faster, more reliable connection than business broadband for critical online operations, but it comes at a price. Is it worth it for you?

Is DIA or broadband right for your business?

Whether DIA or broadband suits your organisation depends on your needs and budget.

Do you have more than ten people in your business? Are you in a data-intensive industry or do you rely on cloud services for mission-critical operations? Overall, would prolonged downtime seriously impact your business?

If so, DIA could give you peace of mind. Less downtime could prevent missed sales, protect customer relationships and boost profits, making DIA well worth the investment.

On the other hand, if your business has fewer than ten people who use the internet only for basic tasks, broadband could suit your needs for now.

While DIA offers a more scalable, future-proof solution than broadband, which is better for you may ultimately depend on cost. So, consider getting a quote for DIA before deciding.

Dedicated Internet Access solutions

At Neos Networks, we provide cost-effective DIA solutions for businesses across the UK, featuring:

• Scalable bandwidth from 100Mbps to 10Gbps
• Our high availability UK-wide core network
• A 99.95% uptime SLA and 24/7 technical support
• A choice of last-mile connectivity providers and resiliency options

Choose between ‘wires only’ DIA, where you have complete control over your connection, or Managed DIA (MDIA), protected by 24/7 monitoring from our network operations centre (NOC).

Or get a DIA quote in a few clicks with LIVEQUOTE, our online pricing and ordering tool.