AT&T, Hughes, and Verizon topped the Vertical Systems Group's 2019 ranking of carriers offering managed SD-WAN services. Those three were followed by a surging CenturyLink, Windstream, Aryaka, and Comcast.

Vertical Systems Group based the rankings on each service provider’s site share. In order to win a position on the leaderboard, service providers needed to achieve a 2% or greater share of billable SD-WAN installations in the U.S.

While the top three retained their positions on the leaderboard, Vertical Systems Group noted the most significant change was CenturyLink's SD-WAN serivce usurping Windstream for the No. 4 position.

In fact, Erin Dunne, director of research services at Vertical Systems Group, said CenturyLink's SD-WAN platform experienced the single largest gain in billable installations in 2019, but declined to go into specifics. She explained that this was largely driven by an ability to execute and start booking a substantial number of installations.

“When they came out of the box with SD-WAN originally, they by their own admission had some issues,” Dunne said of CenturyLink. “As they corrected them over the last year or so, you saw them have the ability to execute and actually install.”

Comcast — which entered the competitive SD-WAN market in 2017 — moved up the ladder to the No. 7 slot, while Fusion fell off the board altogether and was shuffled into the "Challenge" tier. That tier counts service providers with U.S. billable installations greater than 1% and less than 2%, and also included GTT, Masergy, Meriplex, and TPx Communications. Sprint and Big Leaf Networks were dropped to the "Market Player" tier after falling below the 1% mark.

The leaderboard had five SD-WAN vendors’ technologies at their heart, including VMware’s VeloCloud, Cisco's Viptela and Meraki, Fortinet, and Versa. However, the group noted that some service providers — most likely Aryaka — were using their own technologies.

However, the group noted that Versa is the only vendor and Comcast the only service provider evaluated that had achieved the MEF 3.0 SD-WAN certification. The certification, which was first launched in November 2019, aims to help network operators and IT professionals to more confidently choose an SD-WAN vendor.

To qualify, vendors are tested against the requirements defined in the MEF 70 SD-WAN Service Attributes and Services standard. To date, Nuage Networks, Versa, and Infovista were the only vendors, and Comcast Business, Spectrum Enterprise, Telia Co., and PCCW Global, were the only service providers that have received the certification.

Dunne explained that the MEF’s SD-WAN certification is likely to become highly valuable when taking Ethernet into consideration.

While it remains unclear how the ongoing pandemic will affect the SD-WAN market, Vertical Systems Group is predicting resiliency across bandwidth-intensive VPN markets, but increased risk for the SD-WAN networks supporting retail and travel verticals.

Dunne noted the pandemic and the rise of remote work as a consequence is likely to have some impact on the leaderboard’s make up in 2020. However, she added that of the technologies out there, SD-WAN is one of the better suited to meet these changing needs.

“This market should … be able to respond to these changes better than any other technology available,” Dunne said. “If you are a corporate customer of one of these large vendors and you have sites, SD-WAN sites that are installed at their corporate locations … you should be able to roll out SD-WAN via software, NFV-based technology, or a little box to these homes in a relatively short fashion.”

And while Dunne acknowledged there are numerous challenges facing service providers including supply shortages and security issues, she said the service providers that are able to get past these and address their customer’s needs are going to be the ones that move up the leaderboard.