AT&T retained the top spot and Comcast Business rose from fourth in 2020 to second last year in the Vertical Systems Group (VSG) U.S. carrier-managed SD-WAN services leaderboard.
It was a year of change as five top companies shifted position compared to 2020. The Leaderboard includes companies with at least 2% of installed and billable sites. After AT&T – which took top honors for the fourth consecutive year — and Comcast Business, the finishers in order were Hughes, Verizon, Lumen, Windstream and Aryaka.
VSG also released a Challenge Tier with companies between 1% and 2% of the market. Those companies, in alphabetical order, were Fusion Connect, MetTel and TPx.
The third category – the Market Player Tier – are those with sales below 1%. A partial list in alphabetical order includes AireSpring, American Telesis, Arelion, Astound Business, Bigleaf, bSimplify, BT Global Services, C Spire Business, CentraCom, Cincinnati Bell, Cogent, Colt, Consolidated Communications, Cox, Crown Castle, DQE Communications, FirstLight, Frontier, Great Plains Communication, GTT, InfoStructure, Intelsat, Lightpath, Logix Fiber Networks, Meriplex, NTT, Orange Business, PCCW Global, PS Lightwave, SDN Communications, Segra, SES, SingTel, Sparklight Business, Spectrum Enterprise, Syringa, T-Mobile, T-Systems, Tata, Telefonica, Telstra, Transtelco, Unite Private Networks, Uniti, Veracity Networks, Virgin Media Business, Vodafone and Zayo.
It was a good year, according to VSG. “The U.S. Managed SD-WAN services market emerged from the pandemic in 2021 with solid growth in new site installations, driven by accelerated network transformations and more flexible solutions for customers,” Vertical Systems Group principal Rick Malone said in a press release. “Competition is heating up as evidenced by the shake up in top provider rankings on our year-end 2021 U.S. Leaderboad benchmark.”
Other highlights from the research:
- Comcast Business’s rise was based on site share that includes organic growth plus sites added from its Masergy acquisition.
- Hughes moved to third position from second overall in 2020. Verizon moved into fourth position, after finishing third last year.
- Lumen advanced to fifth, up from sixth position. Windstream dropped to sixth position from fifth in 2020. Aryaka retained seventh position.
- TPx dropped into the 2021 Challenge Tier.
- MEF 3.0 SD-WAN Service Certification has been attained by five of the 2021 U.S. Leaderboard companies: AT&T, Comcast Business, Verizon, Lumen and Windstream. Each has employees with MEF SD-WAN Certified Professional training certifications.
- Primary suppliers to the service providers ranked on the 2021 Carrier Managed SD-WAN Leaderboard include Cisco, Fortinet, Versa and VMware. Additionally, SD-WAN providers Aryaka and Hughes utilize internally developed technologies.