Two businesses on the same street can pay wildly different internet bills. One pays $200 a month. The other pays $1,565. Same block. Same speed on paper. The difference is what kind of internet they bought.
One bought broadband. The other bought dedicated internet. Both work. Only one fits your operation. Here is how to tell them apart.
What broadband actually is
Broadband is shared. You split the pipe with everyone around you. When your neighbors get busy, your speed drops. Cable internet is the most common kind.
The speeds look great. 500 Mbps down. Sometimes a gig. But that is the download number. The upload is much smaller. Cable internet gives you fast downloads and slow uploads.
For most small offices, that is fine. You check email. You browse. You stream a webinar. Broadband handles all of it, cheap.
What dedicated internet actually is
Dedicated internet access (DIA) is yours alone. Nobody shares your pipe. The speed you buy is the speed you get, at 2 a.m. or 2 p.m.
DIA means you get the same speed up as you do down. Most business internet does not work that way. For a team that does video calls all day or sends large files, the upload speed is what matters. That is when DIA starts to pencil out.
DIA also comes with an SLA. That is a written promise. The carrier commits to uptime and a fix time. Miss it and you get money back. Broadband gives you no such promise. If it goes down, you wait like everyone else.
The price gap is real
DIA costs more. A lot more. Our data on 10G dedicated fiber shows a median of $1,565 a month. The tails are wide. We saw $895 in NYC and $4,125 in Augusta for the same tier.
Broadband for a small office runs a fraction of that. So the question is not which is better. DIA is better. The question is whether you need what you are paying for.
How to tell which one you need
Ask yourself three things.
First, do you host anything? A phone system, a server, cameras, files people pull from outside? That eats upload. Broadband will choke. You want DIA.
Second, how much does downtime cost you? If your team can grab a hotspot and keep working, broadband is fine. If a dead connection stops the whole shop from making money, buy the SLA. The uptime promise pays for itself the first time it saves you.
Third, how big is the team? Ten people on video calls all day share one broadband pipe badly. Everyone lags. DIA fixes that because the speed is guaranteed.
If you answered no, cheap, and small, keep your broadband. If you answered yes, expensive, and big, DIA is worth the money.
A common middle path
You do not always have to pick one. Some offices run both. DIA as the main line for phones and video. Broadband as a cheap backup for when the fiber cuts out.
That combo costs less than two DIA circuits and still keeps you online. It works well for a business that cannot afford to go dark but does not want to double the bill.
Watch the contract either way
Both come with a contract. And both have a renewal that catches you off guard. The window to negotiate is usually 90 days before the end date. Miss it and you may roll into another year at the same rate, or higher.
Put the date in your calendar the day you sign. Most people do not. That is how they end up paying $40 over the market rate and never noticing.
Not sure which one you are paying for right now? Half the time the bill does not even say. Upload it and we will tell you what you have, what it should cost, and whether you are on the wrong plan for your office.