Who is your Network Set Up For: Your Enterprise or Your Telco-Provider?
Key Takeaways
- SD-WAN has evolved into a mainstream enterprise standard, with hybrid WAN models now widely adopted to balance performance, cost, and resilience.
- Telco-independent networks reduce vendor lock-in, giving enterprises greater flexibility, control, and access to more competitive connectivity options.
- Modern enterprise WAN strategies prioritize cloud performance, integrated security (SASE), and multi-provider agility over traditional telco-only infrastructure.
The early days of SD-WAN
Software-Defined Wide Area Networks (SD-WAN) first started gaining traction in 2015. Using a centralized software application for eased network management, SD-WAN creates a virtual network on top of existing hardware, or underlays, to give enterprises greater traffic control and security over their global networks. Due to this ability, it garnered the attention of early adopters who were looking to get away from traditional network connectivity options such as Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS). As cloud-centric environments have become the default for modern enterprises, SD-WAN has evolved from an emerging technology into a mainstream networking standard, with up to 89% of businesses expected to adopt SD-WAN by 2026. And as more enterprises started moving their entire WAN to the internet, it created a great conundrum for telco providers: start offering SD-WAN solutions or risk losing clients.
Today, the SD-WAN market continues to experience rapid growth, with recent reports identifying the managed SD-WAN segment projected to grow at a CAGR of 31.6% between 2025 and 2034, driven by increasing demand for cloud connectivity, automation, and integrated security capabilities. In contrast, traditional MPLS services are experiencing slower growth and, in some segments, decline, as enterprises increasingly shift toward internet-based and hybrid WAN architectures.
First-generation telco-delivered SD-WAN
With the risk of missing out on a sizeable new opportunity forcing their hand, telcos went to market with their flavor of SD-WAN, but it only partially answered to the SD-WAN needs of enterprises. While telcos were able to make internet and cloud application access possible for businesses, the three core characteristics of SD-WAN — network agility, scalability, and cost savings — were notably absent from the first generation of SD-WAN offerings by telcos.
Why telco-delivered SD-WANs are different
Even in today’s landscape, telcos take a conservative, regimented approach to their solutions. This is because their sheer scale, extensive investment in legacy infrastructure, and existing partner commitments prevent their offerings from being as flexible as other SD-WAN solutions in the market.
In addition to being constrained by their business model, the overhead costs associated with telcos’ SD-WAN offerings raise questions about the net value for enterprises.
Risks of Telco Contracts for Enterprises
In the rapidly evolving world of network technologies, it makes little sense for enterprises to attach themselves to a single telco provider, especially for multi-year lock-in contracts, the typical modus operandi with telcos.
Let’s take the example of the underlay circuit market, that often sees price drops and bandwidth increases, and where new competitive products are constantly entering the market. While a compelling discount upfront might be tempting, signing up to a multi-year lock-in contract may not be viable in the long run as over time, the commercial and technical position is bound to deviate materially from the current market.
Additionally, relying on disaggregated circuits from a variety of providers — in other words, a telco-independent approach — and using a range of access technologies has proven itself in the industry. It can deliver a better performance of availability outcomes when compared to a traditional telco SLA-backed circuit.
Decision Factor | What Enterprises Want | Why It Matters |
Cloud Performance | Direct, low-latency access to SaaS and cloud apps | Enterprise traffic is increasingly cloud-based, making application performance a key prioity |
Cost Control | Lower and predictable network spend | MPLS and telco contracts are often expensive and inflexible |
Agility | Fast deployment and seamless scalability | Businesses need to have the ability to adapt to changing or new business requirements and site demands |
Reliability | Resilient connectivity across multiple providers | Reduces dependency on a single network provider and improves business continuity |
Security | Consistent, integrated protection across all network traffic | Supports Zero Trust and SASE models |
The value of questioning: Who is your network really benefiting?
As the SD-WAN market matures, the gap between a ‘true’ SD-WAN offering and telco-delivered SD-WAN has become increasingly apparent. Shown to increase security, simplify WAN operations, optimize network performance, and enable scalability into the cloud, SD-WAN creates a strong foundation upon which hybrid solutions can be built.
As SD-WAN continues to mature, its role has expanded beyond connectivity into security. Today, 92% of enterprises require integrated security capabilities within their SD-WAN solutions, driving the convergence of networking and security through frameworks such as Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) and Zero Trust architectures.
Greater awareness of these SD-WAN capabilities allows IT leaders to ask more specific questions related to their specific needs such as how SD-WAN solutions can be tailored to the unique needs of their enterprise and whether building contestable, disaggregated underlays might be the better solution for their changing bandwidth requirements.
Secondly, IT leaders also need to question whether the SD-WAN offer in front of them matches the industry standard or whether their provider’s business model and existing partner commitments might be preventing them from accessing the full SD-WAN feature set.
Another important question that IT leaders must consider relates to traffic flow. In the past, enterprises mostly engaged telcos due to their ability to supply the underlying infrastructure that formed the backbone of enterprise IT. Today, a significant proportion of enterprise WAN traffic is internet-bound, with SD-WAN already managing approximately 55% of enterprise WAN traffic in 2025. This shift reinforces the need for architectures that prioritize direct-to-cloud and internet-first routing over traditional backbone dependency.
For example, if an enterprise’s WAN traffic is going to the Azure cloud, its most direct path is from the local ISP infrastructure to the nearest ‘front door’ infrastructure. In this case, the role of the telco network is not only redundant, but it can also detract from availability and performance.
Building a Telco-Independent Network for Your Enterprise
When it comes to enterprise networks, a one-size-fits-all approach simply cannot give businesses the flexibility they need in an ever-changing world. IT leaders today must seek highly flexible solutions with the ability to align the requirements of each region and stakeholder with the right level of service.
With a telco-independent SD-WAN approach, enterprises can choose from a highly contestable portfolio of telco and internet service providers to deliver sites globally. This enables IT leaders to not only take back control of their network but also build a network solution tailored to their unique business needs and ensure that the enterprise reaps the full benefits of next-generation networking and security technologies.
IT leaders should note that disaggregating the enterprise network doesn’t always create unwanted complexity in terms of working with multiple vendors because experienced managed services providers specializing in networking and security technologies make it easy for enterprises to benefit from the offering of a variety of providers.
How we can help your enterprise IT needs
As a leading global provider of telco-independent solutions, driving enterprise adoption of next-generation networking and security technologies is at the crux of what we do at Coevolve. Our proven methodologies and frameworks help our clients pinpoint exactly what they need at every stage of the network lifecycle.
Our service modules can be selected as a fully managed package or can be delivered through an optimal balance of shared responsibilities with your enterprise’s in-house team. Contact our team today to take back control of your network by building a contestable, disaggregated underlay customized for your enterprise’s unique needs.
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FAQs
What is a telco-independent SD-WAN?
Telco-independent SD-WAN is a network approach that enables enterprises to use multiple internet and telecom providers rather than relying on a single provider. This increases flexibility, improves negotiating power, reduces vendor lock-in, and enables better performance, resilience, and cost by selecting the best connectivity options for each location.
How is SD-WAN different from traditional MPLS networks?
Traditional MPLS networks provide reliable private connectivity but are often costly, slow to scale, and less suited to cloud-first environments. SD-WAN uses software-based intelligence to dynamically route traffic across multiple network links, including broadband, fiber, and mobile networks. This enables enterprises to improve application performance, accelerate deployments, and reduce costs while supporting modern cloud and SaaS workloads.
Is MPLS still relevant in modern enterprise networks?
Yes, MPLS is still used, especially in WAN environments where stability and guaranteed performance are required. However, most enterprises now combine MPLS with SD-WAN and internet-based connections rather than relying on it alone.
What are the main benefits of a hybrid WAN approach?
A hybrid WAN combines MPLS, broadband, and SD-WAN technologies to optimize cost, performance, and reliability. This approach allows enterprises to match connectivity to specific business requirements, route traffic more efficiently, improve cloud performance, and reduce dependency on a single network provider.
How does SD-WAN improve cloud application performance?
SD-WAN improves cloud application performance by intelligently directing traffic across the most efficient available path and enabling direct access to cloud and SaaS platforms. By eliminating unnecessary backhaul through centralized data centres, SD-WAN reduces latency, improves application responsiveness and delivers a more consistent user experience for distributed employees, branches and customers.