In the 2020 US Carrier Managed SD-WAN Services Leaderboard AT&T and Verizon being ranked 1st and 3rd, respectively. These service providers each have two percent (2%) or more of the installed and billable Carrier Managed SD-WAN customer sites in the US as of December 31, 2020.
“The managed SD-WAN market in the US endured the pandemic as service providers installed hundreds of new networks in extremely challenging conditions throughout the past year. Businesses and enterprises accelerated the retirement of MPLS assets and made purchase decisions for SD-WAN solutions that enable more flexible access options and dynamic connectivity,” said Rick Malone, principal of Vertical Systems Group. “Some provider positions changed on our 2020 Leaderboard benchmark, and we expect further shuffling of the ranks as additional sizeable networks are activated this year.”
Moreover, the expansion of Carrier Managed SD-WAN services in the US increased 39% in 2020. As previously projected, demand was resilient across bandwidth-intensive markets but vulnerable for verticals like retail and travel. In 2019 (pre-pandemic), the growth was 89% for managed SD-WAN services.
AT&T and Verizon remain among the top three SD-WAN providers for three consecutive years now. On the other hand, Comcast advances to rank fourth for 2020, moving up from the seventh position in 2019.
By definition, a Carrier Managed SD-WAN Service includes a Software Defined Network (SDN) service architecture that enables dynamic optimization of traffic flows, a purpose-built SD-WAN appliance or CPE-hosted SD-WAN Virtual Network Function (VNF) at each customer edge site, support for multiple active underlay connectivity services, and centralized network orchestration with end-to-end application visibility.