The first challenge in sourcing internet is deciding what you need. It's finding a balance between cost and performance that's so important. Because in an internet world you're going to have a lot more choice than in an MPLS world.
This advice comes from Globalinternet Chief Portfolio Officer Mike Lloyd.
Greg Bryan has a microphone, a seemingly endless supply of data, and the phone numbers of some prominent WAN experts.
Sounds like the recipe for a podcast to me.
My colleague Elizabeth Thorne and I have been working on busting–or confirming–WAN pricing myths that we’ve heard in the wild. Last time I took on MPLS and DIA price convergence.
I’m going to stick with DIA for this post, too.
Specifically, I want to know if Tier 1 IP providers charge more for DIA service than others. This is a myth I’ve actually argued in favor of in the past. It is certainly true that some carriers can provide a higher level of service, i.e. traffic that takes the fewest hops between destinations, and maybe even traffic that never touches another provider’s network. This might warrant higher prices.
Welcome back to the third installment of our mythbusting series, where we break down legends in telecom pricing and see if they hold water. (Don’t miss our investigations on tall tales in local access budgeting and MPLS/DIA pricing lore.)
We founded the WAN Summit with the intention of creating a space where enterprise network managers and vendors could come together to discuss trends in corporate networking. While our summits cover everything the WAN touches, it’s no secret that one topic has been at the forefront of many attendees’ minds: SD-WAN.
In case you missed my previous post, we here at TeleGeography love busting telecom myths. But we haven’t turned our analytical tools toward common WAN pricing myths—until now!
In this second installment, I’m going to investigate whether MPLS IP VPN and dedicated internet access (DIA) prices have become one and the same.
The world of WAN services can seem like the Wild West to even the savviest of WAN managers. We try to bring some order to this world with our Cloud and WAN Infrastructure research service.
In the age of high-profile corporate data breaches (check out that top 10 list if you don’t want to sleep tonight), many WAN managers have security on their minds. Traditionally, enterprises treated their network security like a fortress, creating strong defenses at the perimeters of the network to defend the data and resources inside.
We have a years-long tradition of Mythbusting here at TeleGeography. But it occurred to me that we’ve never tackled any of the WAN pricing myths floating around out there. That’s why I decided to do a series addressing some of the things I hear from WAN-sourcing and WAN-selling professionals.
Let’s see if these WAN pricing myths stack up against the data.
First up: is it true that, particularly for traditional MPLS networks, local access can account for upwards of 50% of the total cost of ownership (TCO) of WAN components?
Like many of our readers, I’m currently working from home. And it’s likely that I will be for the foreseeable future.
Luckily, TeleGeography just completed its move from a local server that had been living in the IT closet of our DC office to Google’s G Suite solution. We can now access shared files using our at-home broadband connection and G Suite authentication. Despite the uncertainty of the current situation, we’re able to carry on (fairly) business-as-usual.
Copyright © 2025 TeleGeography.
