Companies still buy a fixed internet speed months ahead and pay that speed through quiet weeks. Artificial intelligence jobs and cloud moves make the next peak harder to forecast, so the company either overpays or opens a new circuit order when the work arrives. Intelligent Internet is dedicated internet that staff can raise or lower in Lumen Connect or through an application programming interface, while finance keeps a monthly term. Lumen says the service is available at more than 10 million U.S. business locations and can run up to 100 gigabits per second. DDoS Essentials and Lumen Defender are included on the same order.
Jim Fowler, Lumen’s chief technology and product officer, said companies already grow and shrink servers and storage, and enterprise internet should work the same way. Lumen cited International Data Corporation research that 37 percent of enterprises saw bandwidth needs grow more than 50 percent in a year, and that 29 percent could not align their networks with artificial intelligence work (Lumen, 2026).
The speed change in minutes only applies after Lumen has a physical connection in the building. Lumen calls that connection a Fabric Port. Mara Voss at BTW Media wrote on September 24 that the short wait does not apply to a building that still needs new fiber or a partner last-mile install (Voss, 2026). Ask Lumen which of your sites already have that connection.
The New York Yankees raise speed on game days and lower it when the stadium is closed
Lumen named four early customers: iVision, SABIS, Skyway Studios, and the New York Yankees. A game day at Yankee Stadium needs more internet. A closed weekday needs less. The team can raise speed for the event and lower it afterward instead of paying the game-day rate every month.
The same pattern shows up when a company runs an artificial intelligence job or a cloud move for two weeks and then goes back to normal traffic. The old process was a new circuit order. The new process is a change in the portal on a term the company already signed.
Intelligent Internet is for sites that need more speed some weeks and less speed on others
A company with one site and steady traffic can keep an AT&T or Verizon dedicated circuit.
A company with many offices, stores, campuses, or venues, and with some weeks much busier than others, should put Intelligent Internet next to the renewal. Do the same if model work now moves large files for short stretches and last year’s circuit size no longer matches.
A private path into Amazon, Google, Microsoft, or Oracle is a different product. That comparison is Lumen Multi-Cloud Gateway, Equinix Fabric, or Megaport.
AT&T and Verizon still hold many buildings. Megaport and Zayo sell nearby ports.
AT&T Dedicated Internet and Verizon Business dedicated internet remain the usual national contracts, especially where those carriers already own the last mile. Comcast Business and Spectrum Enterprise cover a large number of branches. Zayo sells metro fiber and on-demand bandwidth. Cogent sells internet transit. Alkira, which Lumen bought in May, builds a cloud network in software.
Ask each vendor for the same three figures at the same addresses: days until first traffic, monthly cost at the quiet-week speed, and monthly cost at the busy-week speed.
Ask network engineering which buildings already have a Lumen or partner connection. If none do, this product cannot change speed this quarter. If a dozen sites already have a connection and traffic varies by week, ask finance to compare a term with movable speed against another year of circuits sized for the busiest week.
Sources
Bellamkonda, Shashi. “Lumen's Second Act: The AI Infrastructure Bet That Could Redefine B2B Connectivity.” shashi.co, 27 Feb. 2026, www.shashi.co/2026/02/lumens-second-act-ai-infrastructure-bet.html.
Bellamkonda, Shashi. “The Network Is Now the AI Nervous System.” shashi.co, 5 May 2026, www.shashi.co/2026/05/the-network-is-now-ai-nervous-system.html.
Hardesty, Linda. “AI is breaking bandwidth forecasts. Lumen wants enterprises to scale internet on demand.” Fierce Network, 21 Sep. 2026, www.fierce-network.com/broadband/lumen-enhances-demand-connectivity-its-naas.
Lumen Technologies. “Lumen Launches Intelligent Internet, Bringing Cloud-Like Agility to Enterprises.” 21 Sep. 2026, s21.q4cdn.com/756714007/files/doc_news/Lumen-Launches-Intelligent-Internet-Bringing-Cloud-Like-Agility-to-Enterprises-2026.pdf.
Voss, Mara. “Lumen’s five-minute bandwidth starts at the port.” BTW Media, 24 Sep. 2026, btw.media/en/lumen-five-minute-bandwidth-contracted-port.
