Back in 2019, we built a hypothetical network to illustrate how different network configurations might affect total cost of ownership (TCO).
Now that it's nearly 2023, we got to thinking, if Cheaper By the Dozen can get a reboot, why can't our hypothetical network series?
So here we are. The world has changed a lot in the last three years, and WAN managers are also facing a number of changes.
When I reached out to today's podcast guest—Jim Poole, Vice President of Business Development at Equinix—about being on the show, I asked if he'd be willing to dig into NaaS or edge data centers.
Welcome back, podcast listeners. We're thrilled to dive into a new season of telecom tech talk.
First, you might have noticed that we look a little different than when we were last in your headphones. That's because we did a little old-fashioned rebranding while on summer break. What was once the WAN Manager Podcast is now TeleGeography Explains the Internet.
🎶 It’s electric!
You can’t see it (it’s electric!)
You gotta feel it (it’s electric!) 🎶
Our August list of telecom reading recs starts off with new legislation designed to speed up broadband rollouts by tapping into the U.S. electric grid.
Also on the docket? An update on Ukrainian connectivity and a trio of TeleGeography experts in the news.
Endeavors like SpaceX’s Starlink and Amazon’s Project Kuiper have brought lots of attention to the expanding market for connecting more residential customers to satellite broadband.
But how are enterprises affected by the growing satellite market?
With summer in full swing, things are heating up—literally.
Like data centers.
Our July list of recommended reads touches on overheating data centers in the UK, a massive broadband outage in Canada, new submarine cables coming to Africa, and more.
Enterprises can choose few or many providers in the middle mile (or none at all). As with other technology procurement decisions, this depends on an individual enterprise’s capability to orchestrate multiple vendors and preferences for specific vendors in the chain.
It also depends on current network infrastructure and the desire to leverage that toward a reconfigured WAN, as well as the performance and cost goals the enterprise wants to achieve.
To provide insight into how a complete SD-WAN overlay can impact total network spend, it’s useful to look at how various cost components apply to a specific network.
Looking at the total cost of the overlay and its impact on a network’s total cost of ownership (TCO) affords the most apples-to-apples comparison between service providers, particularly with a number of pricing models currently in the market.
To do this level of analysis, we created a hypothetical network based on our median WAN Cost Benchmark customer.
We just wrapped Season 3 of the WAN Manager Podcast.
With 14 different guests across 16 data-packed episodes, there was a lot to take in—and a lot to learn.
Let’s revisit three key explainers you might have missed.
Copyright © 2025 TeleGeography.
