Glossary · Access

What is DIA?

Dedicated Internet Access is an internet connection where the capacity you buy belongs to you alone. Nobody else shares it, the upload rate matches the download rate, and the provider commits contractually to keeping it available. It is the enterprise counterpart to the shared broadband products sold to households and small offices.

Term
DIA
Also known as
Dedicated Internet Access
Category
Access
In short
A private internet circuit whose bandwidth is reserved fo…

In detail

Committed information rate

DIA is sold at a committed information rate — a floor, not a ceiling. A 500 Mbps DIA circuit delivers 500 Mbps in each direction continuously, regardless of what other customers are doing. Compare that with a broadband product advertising "up to 1 Gbps", where the number describes the best case on an oversubscribed segment and no minimum is promised at all.

What comes with the circuit

A DIA service normally includes static IPv4 and IPv6 addressing, support for BGP or static routing, and a defined service commitment covering availability and response. Many organizations run their own address space and announce it via BGP over the circuit, which is straightforward on DIA and typically impossible on a broadband product.

Delivery and handoff

The circuit terminates on provider equipment at your premises and hands off as Ethernet — commonly a copper or optical port on a network interface device. Agreeing the handoff type, media, and speed early avoids the classic installation-day discovery that your firewall has no matching interface.

Why it matters

DIA is the correct foundation whenever an organization's work stops if connectivity degrades. The decision is not about company size; it is about consequence. Where hosted applications, clinical systems, production control, or dispatch depend on the connection, a committed rate and a contractual response path are the point of the purchase.

Where you will see it

  • A medical group running a hosted EHR across several clinics
  • A district office whose staff and students share one internet path during testing
  • A distribution centre pushing camera and inventory traffic continuously upstream

Working through a connectivity decision?

Describe the requirement and an engineer will tell you which service actually fits — without a rate card or a sales script in the way.

Talk to a Network Specialist

Service availability depends on location, network proximity, capacity, and engineering review. Share an address and we will confirm what can be delivered there.