It's impossible for every carrier to connect to every city in their customers’ networks. At the end of the day, not all services are available everywhere.
So what does the geographic coverage of enterprise network services actually look like?
How We Mapped Geographic Coverage
Enter Cloud and WAN Infrastructure, which details the international WAN services, cloud connectivity offerings, and cloud geographies of 180 service providers.
Tracking carrier service expansion required comparing the number of cities in which each carrier offers services across set time periods. New carriers have been added to TeleGeography's Cloud and WAN Infrastructure survey since 2011; a cohort of 151 were present in both 2017 and 2018.
We've maintained data for a core cohort of 49 carriers every year since 2011. Analysis of the five-year compound annual growth rate of enterprise product offerings reflects this group.
Beginning with the 2014 survey, TeleGeography stopped limiting carrier geographic coverage to a set of specific cities, allowing for improved analysis of global footprints. Carriers now report on-net service in 3,926 different cities located in 162 countries. The original list of the top 166 key business centers already capture the most competitive cities.
What We Found
IP VPN Dominates
Number of Offerings of All Products, 2018
As is the case in the 166 key business centers, IP VPN remains the most prominent product across all global carrier locations, with 6,702 offerings. Beyond that, the breakdown is as follows:
- DIA is the second most common product at 5,719 offerings.
- EoMPLS is third, with 4,900 worldwide offerings.
- T-E Carrier is the least common product, with fewer than 2,400 global offerings.
U.S. & Canada Home to Most Competition
Number of Offerings of IP VPN, DIA, EoMPLS, and DWDM by Region, 2018
IP VPN is the most prominent service offered in Europe, with 2,818 offerings in 2018. By comparison, there are only 2,344 offerings of DIA in Europe, 1,718 of EoMPLS, and 1,397 of DWDM.
Services are more equitably distributed by carriers in the U.S. and Canada. In 2018 there were 1,967 offerings of DWDM, 1,915 of DIA, and 1,802 for IP VPN, compared to 1,691 EoMPLS sites.
Patrick Christian
Patrick Christian is a Senior Research Manager with TeleGeography. He heads the Cloud and WAN Research Service. He also focuses on African and European markets specializing in international bandwidth markets and internet infrastructure, WAN services, terrestrial and submarine cable systems, and international voice traffic analysis.