Dedicated Internet Access (DIA): Ultimate 2025 Pricing Guide

Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) encompasses ISP products with guaranteed, symmetric, dedicated bandwidth backed by SLAs for uptime and potentially other performance metrics. DIA is the gold standard for a business’s primary connectivity option if connectivity matters at all to the business.

DIA pricing is impacted by a number of factors. Higher bandwidth always yields higher cost, when all other variables are held equal. The cost to deliver the connection is another major factor influencing cost (often the most influential factor). If the connection is “off-net” and construction is required, that’ll significantly impact costs. Connectivity in a colocation data center is often relatively cheap, as many ISPs are “on-net” with plentiful bandwidth to provision without construction. Contract term length also matters to cost: shorter terms mean higher cost, as the ISP must amortize the cost of service delivery over a shorter timeframe. Most commonly, we’ll see 36-month terms for DIA services.

Below, see summary data for 2024 DIA quotes from the Lightyear dataset across three bandwidth tiers. All quotes analyzed are in the US on a 36-month term, but include a diverse mix of US geographies, ISPs, and on-net vs. off-net situations. This allows the averages and high / low percentiles to give you a better gauge of what to expect depending on what variables come into play when quoting DIA on your own. Sourcing an off-net circuit in a complex geography? Expect pricing to be above median, maybe at the high-end of the distribution. Sourcing in a well populated colo? Expect pricing to be at the low-end of the distribution. (Note: some low-cost colo-centric providers are excluded from the data so as not to swing results too deeply).

Since the last time we did this exercise in 2023, 100 Mbps pricing has compressed quite a bit, while 1 Gbps and 10 Gbps pricing have compressed slightly, but less so.

2024 Average Broadband / Best Effort Pricing

Broadband, or best effort, connectivity is more similar to the connectivity options you’d utilize at your home. Business broadband offerings differ quite a bit, but they’re typically shared (rather than dedicated) connections, lack SLAs, and come with asymmetric bandwidth (much more download than upload speed). Further, broadband connectivity is marketed at maximum speeds, meaning if you have a “100 Mbps connection”, that’s the best speed you’ll likely get and in reality it will likely be lower most of the time. As a positive, many business broadband options can be purchased on a month-to-month term with no contractual commitment!

Note: not all broadband products are created equal. Some broadband services come with symmetric bandwidth, and now even SLAs. That said, most often business broadband service is packaged as outlined above.

Below, see summary data for US business broadband quoted in 2024 within Lightyear’s dataset. It’s much cheaper than DIA, which makes sense given the lack of construction, SLAs, and support offered. It’s also worth noting that broadband comes with fewer bandwidth tier options. There are not a ton of 1 Gbps business broadband options available today, and almost nothing beyond that available bandwidth-wise. As broadband technology continues to shift, this may change.

DIA Bandwidth Sourced

What bandwidth tiers are enterprises selecting most frequently when sourcing DIA connectivity? See below for a distribution from our dataset. We’ve observed average bandwidth tiers selected trending up over time, which isn’t particularly surprising. Today, 59% of connectivity sourced is 1 or 10 Gbps! Soon enough, I’m sure 100 Gbps links will make up a real share of this pie. When Lightyear was founded, 100 Mbps was the “standard” option we saw most enterprises pick.

Type 1 vs. Type 2 Access 

When you purchase connectivity from a provider who is leasing last-mile infrastructure from another service provider, you’re purchasing “Type 2” connectivity. When enterprises work with aggregators (like GTT or Granite) or only work with a small number of ISPs, Type 2 can make up a significant portion of an enterprise’s network. Type 2 comes with a number of differences from Type 1 access, most notably that it’s “marked up” by the provider utilizing another provider’s infrastructure. By how much exactly? See below for average differences observed in our dataset in pricing for Type 1 access vs. Type 2 access on 100 Mbps DIA quotes. It’s worth noting that the observed markup can differ materially based on circumstances of what’s quoted. 

Conclusion

We hope this post helped shed some light on how dedicated internet services are priced. If you made it this far, you’re aware that quite a few factors go into your internet quotes and some orders are more nuanced than others.

Despite the nuance, here at Lightyear we believe that connectivity is a commodity and it should accordingly be procured and managed like one.

We are working round the clock to mine our data for helpful insights like these. We hope to use our data to help get businesses the value they deserve.

If your enterprise needs help procuring, implementing, managing, or rebidding your telecom services, don’t hesitate to reach out for a demo of our services.