If you've ever complained that your business internet slows down at 2pm, or that a single large file transfer kills your video calls, you may have encountered the limits of shared broadband. Dedicated Internet Access is the alternative — and for the right business, it's transformative.
The Short Answer
Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) is a private, unshared internet circuit delivered exclusively to your business. Unlike cable, DSL, or most fiber broadband plans — which pool bandwidth among dozens or hundreds of customers — DIA gives you 100% of the bandwidth you're paying for, 100% of the time.
How DIA Differs from Standard Business Broadband
The key differences come down to guarantees:
- Shared broadband: "Up to" speeds, variable performance, best-effort delivery, lower cost ($80–$300/mo)
- Dedicated Internet Access: Guaranteed speeds, symmetrical upload/download, SLA-backed uptime, higher cost ($300–$2,000+/mo)
The critical word is guaranteed. With DIA, if you're paying for 500 Mbps symmetrical, you get 500 Mbps symmetrical — at 3am and at 3pm on a Tuesday.
What Does DIA Actually Cost in 2026?
- 10 Mbps symmetrical: $150–$350/month
- 50 Mbps symmetrical: $250–$500/month
- 100 Mbps symmetrical: $300–$700/month
- 500 Mbps symmetrical: $500–$1,200/month
- 1 Gbps symmetrical: $700–$2,000/month
These prices are highly negotiable — especially when you use a broker to pit multiple carriers against each other. Discover Communications regularly helps businesses reduce DIA quotes by 30–40% through competitive bidding. See how we approach dedicated internet access for business.
The SLA: The Real Reason Businesses Pay for DIA
DIA contracts come with a Service Level Agreement committing the carrier to specific performance metrics:
- Uptime guarantee: Usually 99.99% (about 52 minutes of downtime per year)
- Latency: Typically <5ms on the local loop
- Mean Time to Repair: Most carriers commit to 4-hour repair windows for DIA vs. "next business day" for broadband
- Service credits: Financial compensation if the carrier misses the SLA
For a business where one hour of internet downtime costs $1,000–$5,000, a DIA contract with a real SLA changes the risk equation entirely.
Which Businesses Should Consider DIA?
- You run VoIP phones that degrade with packet loss or jitter
- Your team uses video conferencing constantly
- You operate cloud-hosted environments with heavy uploads
- You process credit cards or run customer-facing transactions online
- Internet downtime directly costs you money (retail POS, medical records, dispatch)
- You have 20+ simultaneous users with heavy bandwidth needs
DIA Circuit Types: Fiber vs. Ethernet over Copper vs. Fixed Wireless
Fiber DIA is the gold standard — highest performance, best SLAs, most reliable. Requires fiber in your building. Ethernet over Copper (EoC) delivers DIA-grade guarantees over copper phone lines — available in more buildings but capped around 50 Mbps. Fixed Wireless DIA uses point-to-point microwave — fast to deploy, good SLAs, but weather-dependent.
How to Get DIA Without Getting Overcharged
The same 100 Mbps DIA circuit can cost $350 or $900/month depending on which carrier you call first. The best approach: have a broker run a competitive bid with every carrier serving your address simultaneously. Discover Communications does this at no cost — we're paid by the carrier you choose. Start a comparison here.
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