From a business perspective, getting access to the internet and providing connectivity to their employees should be simple.
At Radius Connect we understand the need for businesses to be able to access and understand the relevant facts quickly when they are trying to decide on the best connectivity for their business. This blog will therefore aim to explore what Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) is and why businesses should consider DIA as an essential option when reviewing their connectivity needs.
Is Broadband Not Enough?
Broadband has been revolutionary in terms of the way businesses now do business. Think back only 20 years ago and the number of services we now rely on which could not have existed back then without some form of internet access.
In the beginning, most people accessed the internet via their existing telephone lines which had been there for many, many decades. These telephone lines were usually copper and users accessed the internet via a dial up modem. As technology has evolved, however, most of the telephone network has been upgraded to much faster and higher capacity fibre optic cables with only the last mile from the telecoms cabinet to the premises still using copper in most cases.
All of these developments to the network and the various ways in which we can now access our internet services, have led to many new terms being introduced such as broadband, super fast broadband, fibre, fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) and full-fibre. This can be very confusing when all your business needs to do is access the internet in order to complete various business operations.
This in turn means the speed at which you access your internet services will be affected by the overall volume of traffic on the network at the same time as your users. For some businesses this is just not a suitable option as they need a guaranteed level of access in order to perform their key business operations and not face delays and slow downs during important times of the day.
Dedicated Internet Access
Businesses who rely on uninterrupted internet access should therefore consider installing Dedicated Internet Access at their premises.
Sometimes known as a ‘Leased Line’ owing to the line being leased completely from your telecoms operator, a leased line will bring many different benefits to your business.
The Benefits of Dedicated Internet Access
Guaranteed Bandwidth
With Dedicated Internet Access you get what you pay for. If you purchase 50Mbps you will be guaranteed 50Mbps bandwidth. Many businesses find that whilst they may be paying for a 100Mbps shared broadband connection when they move to DIA they can drop this to a much lower level owing to the guaranteed bandwidth they will receive.
Same Upload & Download Speeds
One of the downsides of shared broadband is that upload speeds are normally very poor. With DIA you will be guaranteed that upload speeds will be just as good as download speeds.
Secure
As you will effectively be leasing a line from your network provider you will have a lot more options in relation to being able to customise the security settings for your business.
Unlimited
With DIA you will not have to worry about hitting a particular monthly limit or end up with additional fees for going over.
Customer Support
As you can imagine, leasing a dedicated line from your telecoms operator will make you a much more important customer than a customer with a shared broadband connection. With DIA you will have a ‘Service Level Agreement’ to guarantee what you can expect from your provider and should things go wrong fixing it will be prioritised over other shared connections.
Confidence
One of the main benefits which our customers find is that each of the factors mentioned above lead to much more confidence in the services they are paying for and this in turn can lead to better innovation and improved productivity for their business.
Does Your Business Need Dedicated Internet Access?
When you look at each of the benefits outlined in previous section, Dedicated Internet Access is quite a compelling proposition for many businesses, however, is it right for yours?
Another way of looking at business connectivity, is that if you currently use any of the services listed below you should probably look at DIA as a way to guarantee and improve your internet access.
- Remote users
- VPN access
- Remote desktops
- VOIP telephone systems
- Cloud Applications
If your business utilises applications such as these and your staff rely on their internet connection and could not cope with even a lag in service, then Dedicated Internet Access should be given serious consideration.
To find out more about Dedicated Internet Access and how to improve access to the internet for your business, please Get In Touch and one of our experienced business advisers can help to talk you through the options available and those which are best suited to your business needs.