Broadband is a contended service, which means it is delivered from the exchange to a nearby cabinet and then into your building on a traditional copper line. This line may be serving many homes or businesses along the way, as the line is a shared public line.
The Direct Internet Access (DIA) is delivered directly from exchange to your business’ communications room and is your own private line that can be used only by you and is not being diluted by other users.
Business Broadband vs DIA – what are the benefits?
Stability – a contended broadband service will deliver variable performance that is dependent on the time of the day and caused by external fluctuation in local broadband demand. A DIA solution is more stable and only impacted by your own activity.
Reliability – DIA is more reliable because less can go wrong with a private line. The risk of outside forces causing reliability issues are diminished. The circuit carries a 24/7 SLA and is constantly monitored for performance and up-time.
Flexibility – broadband is best used for either data or voice traffic, it is not recommended to mix the two on one service and would cause quality issues. The DIA is a managed service that can have a small percentage of the bandwidth separated for voice traffic.
Security – it is far harder to hack a fibre DIA circuit, as it is secured on its own firewall, and has both a WAN and LAN router, giving your business an added layer of protection.
Capacity – broadband delivers a maximum 17 Mbps downstream and 2.5 Mbps upstream. Fibre broadband reaches 76 Mbps downstream and 19 Mbps upstream. DIA can be bespoke to your needs, delivering any speed from 10 Mbps to 1,000 Mbps consistently and synchronously, both downstream and upstream, with no variation other than what you may be doing with it internally.
Business Continuity – the most important reason delivered from the above is that the risk of breach is reduced greatly. The guaranteed up-time ensures no business hours are lost to failure and the consistent bandwidth ensures steady working patterns. The continuity can be enhanced further if a back-up circuit is added.
Why have a back-up for DIA?
Although this is optional, it is highly recommended to back-up the DIA on a separate fibre broadband, which is configured to the same IP address for immediate failover without intervention.
Business Continuity – the broadband circuit will be configured to mirror the DIA connectivity. In the rare event of failure, the data and voice will still operate, albeit at lower capacity. It avoids the need for any active intervention to bring the services back from an interruption.
Diagnostic and Rectification – again, in the rare event of a failure of the circuit, the back-up circuit can be used to access the routers (both WAN and LAN) to diagnose and fix issues quickly – sometimes even before the business notices the issues, which usually removes the need for an on-sight engineer visit.
For more information and initial discussion about how we can improve your business, please contact David on DavidLancaster@bdm-voice.co.uk or on 0330 159 400.
