6 min read · Published August 24, 2026 · Vast Networks
The wrong framing
Most evaluations compare monthly prices and speed figures, which makes dedicated fiber look expensive and slow. On that basis it loses every time, because it is being measured on the two dimensions where a shared consumer-derived product is deliberately optimised.
The relevant comparison is between the price difference and the cost of the failure mode you are accepting. Framed that way the numbers usually reverse, and often dramatically.
Calculating what downtime costs you
A rough figure is enough to make the decision. Take fully loaded staff cost per hour for the people who cannot work, add directly lost revenue for the period, and add any recovery cost — overtime, rescheduling, expedited shipping, clinical rework.
Then estimate degraded-performance cost, which is usually larger in aggregate and always underestimated because it is invisible. An hour a day of slow hosted applications across thirty people is a substantial annual cost that never appears as an incident.
The cases where dedicated fiber is clearly worth it
Hosted clinical, financial, or line-of-business systems on the critical path. Continuous upstream load — cameras, replication, backup — that a shared plan cannot carry. Voice or video that must be consistent all day. A compliance, insurance, or contractual requirement for documented service commitments. Multiple sites needing comparable, predictable performance.
A common signal is that IT is repeatedly asked to explain why the connection is slow despite a large advertised number. That pattern almost always indicates contention, asymmetry, or both.
The cases where it is not
A small office doing email, browsing, and occasional video calls, where a slow hour is a mild irritation. A temporary site. A location that already sits behind a dedicated circuit at headquarters. Where budget genuinely cannot absorb it, a shared plan plus a tested failover is a more honest plan than a dedicated circuit that squeezes something else important.
It is worth saying plainly: many organizations are correctly served by broadband, and selling them a dedicated circuit would be selling them capability they will not use.
The middle path most organizations should consider
A dedicated circuit sized honestly rather than generously, plus an inexpensive broadband connection on a different medium as automatic failover. This is usually cheaper than a large dedicated circuit alone, covers the most common failure, and puts the money where it changes outcomes.