Costs of Wireless WAN

The WAN Set Free: Agility, Resilience & Cost Considerations in Wireless WAN

Three forces are coming together to fundamentally transform the WAN. First is the ability to easily leverage broadband Internet via software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) technologies. Second is the emergence of high-bandwidth wireless services, including Gigabit-class LTE and 5G. Third is the changing pricing model for wireless, from pay-per-bit to fixed-rate, fixed-bandwidth services.

This white paper by Nemertes Research explores how SD-WAN technologies that provide seamless load-balancing and traffic routing can provide a next-generation WAN that incorporates wireless WAN (WWAN) connectivity in one of four modes:

• Initial connectivity providing instant-on connectivity to new branches
• Failover connectivity seamlessly picking up if wired connections fail
• Primary connectivity or always-on but only to handle bursts above wired capacity
• WWAN-only e.g. for pop-up branches or those distant from wired options