AT&T Again Tops Latest SD-WAN Rankings

AT&T, Hughes and Verizon retained the top three positions while Comcast jumped to fourth on the latest Vertical Systems Group SD-WAN rankings for year-end 2020.

Vertical Systems Group’s Carrier Managed SD-WAN Services Leaderboard lists AT&T atop its peers for number of managed SD-WAN customer sites in the U.S. at the end of last year. AT&T has been partnering with VeloCloud since 2016 for its platform.

Comcast replaced Lumen Technologies in fourth, moving up from seventh position in 2019. Lumen is now sixth. Windstream remained fifth. Aryaka dipped from sixth to seventh. And TPx debuted in eighth, moving up from the challenge tier.

These seven service providers in the SD-WAN rankings each had 2% or more of installed and billable carrier managed SD-WAN customer sites in the United States.

Enduring the Pandemic

Rick Malone is principal of Vertical Systems Group

“The managed SD-WAN market in the U.S. endured the pandemic as service providers installed hundreds of new networks in extremely challenging conditions throughout the past year,” he said. “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. 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.”

MetTel advanced to the challenge tier, up from the market player tier. The challenge tier also includes Fusion Connect, GTT and Meriplex. Those are service providers with between 1% and 2% share of U.S. carrier managed SD-WAN sites.

Despite the pandemic, expansion of carrier managed SD-WAN services in the U.S. increased 39% in 2020. As previously projected, demand was resilient across bandwidth intensive markets, but vulnerable for verticals like retail and travel. Pre-pandemic site growth was 89% for managed SD-WAN services in 2019.

AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Windstream attained MEF 3.0 SD-WAN Services certification.

The primary technology suppliers for the leaderboard companies are VMware, Versa, Fortinet and Cisco. Additionally, Aryaka and Hughes use technologies they developed internally.

Versa, VMware and Fortinet have attained MEF 3.0 SD-WAN Technology certification.

Market players include such providers as AireSpring, Bigleaf, Cox, Frontier Communications, T-Mobile and Zayo.