Business broadband and dedicated internet access (DIA) both put an office on the internet. They're built differently. Broadband shares a local path. DIA reserves capacity for one customer. The difference shows up at peak hours and after a break.
Business broadband
A business broadband circuit uses the same local network as nearby homes. The contract is commercial, but it's still a shared physical path.
- Shared capacity. Neighbouring premises draw from the same pool. When the area is busy, your speed falls.
- Uneven speeds. Download far outruns upload. A 100Mbps product can leave you with 10 to 20Mbps when you send files out.
- Limited fault cover. The supplier will work on a break. The contract doesn't promise much.
- Cost: £25 to £80 a month, set by speed and supplier.
A team of under ten, with light cloud use and no operation that fails when the line drops, can run on this.
Dedicated internet access
DIA is a leased line or Ethernet circuit. The capacity is reserved for you and written into the contract.
- Matched speeds. Upload and download run at the same rate.
- Uncontended. No other customer shares your allocation.
- SLA in the contract. Typical terms are 99.9% uptime and a four to six hour repair window.
- Static IPs. Required for VPN tunnels, hosted services and security configuration.
- Cost: £200 to £800 a month, depending on speed and location.
How to decide
Work through these checks:
Would work stop if the internet failed? Then you need DIA, or broadband with a failover path.
Do cloud applications carry the working day? Microsoft 365, hosted CRM, VoIP and cloud ERP need consistent, low-latency connectivity. Broadband will often cope. DIA is more dependable.
Do large files leave the office often? Video, design work and cloud backups stall on an asymmetric upload.
Are more than 15 people online at once? Shared broadband begins to fail beyond that.
Is voice on the same circuit? Jitter and packet loss on a contended line produce dropped calls and poor audio.
The middle ground: SD-WAN
A single leased line can exceed the budget. SD-WAN bonds several connections (broadband, 4G/5G, leased line) into one managed network. Traffic moves across the healthy links. If one path fails, the others take over.
Reliability approaches DIA without the full leased-line price. Most businesses with 15 to 50 users take this route.
Automation needs a stable circuit
Workflow automation and document processing send files throughout the day. An asymmetric, shared circuit throttles those uploads. Agents then wait on a line that was never sized for that traffic.
How Wanzo helps
We price circuits across more than 30 UK carriers. Broadband, leased line or SD-WAN: we cover procurement, installation and the monthly running of the service.
What to do next
Tell us how the office uses the internet today. We'll come back with a recommendation. Email hello@wanzo.co.uk or use the contact page.