Research from TeleGeography says prices for SD-WAN, particularly at low-bandwidth sites, have started to decline. Credit: jamesteohart As SD-WAN adoption continues to flourish, the market has begun to stabilize and competitive pressures have begun to force prices lower, according to research from TeleGeography. SD-WAN costs are apparently becoming more accessible, particularly at the lower-capacity end of the market, according to TeleGeography’s research, which said that median non-recurring charges for SD-WAN implementations—meaning charges for the SD-WAN appliances themselves, not for additional managed services—have decreased by about 15% compounded annually since 2018. That’s due in large part to increasing technological sophistication, according to Brianna Boudreau, senior research manager for TeleGeography. “What we’ve seen is that as SD-WAN has matured, pricing models have evolved,” she said. “[Vendors] have been making cuts to become more competitive.” SD-WAN pricing is a somewhat complicated issue to study, given the wide variety of pricing models offered by SD-WAN vendors. Some focus more on capital expenditure-based plans where the cost is mostly in purchasing the actual SD-WAN appliance; others are more opex-based, where the costs are more focused on paying for an ongoing software subscription. The fact that the majority of SD-WAN sites are at the lower end of the capacity scale—think branch offices and retail stores—means that they might only require 50Mbps to 100Mbps of WAN bandwidth, so the costs are lower. Buying SD-WAN as a managed service, instead of simply buying an appliance from a vendor tends to be about 1.9 times more expensive, but TeleGeography said that using an SD-WAN implementation in the first place can save organizations 50% or more compared to traditional WANs. Prices at the higher end of the SD-WAN market aren’t falling by the same amount as those on the lower end (TeleGeography didn’t provide exact figures) but Boudreau said that she expects SD-WAN prices across the board to decline. “We do anticipate that prices will continue to fall and that the price range among competitors will shrink,” she said. Related content news analysis Western Digital keeps HDDs relevant with major capacity boost Western Digital and rival Seagate are finding new ways to pack data onto disk platters, keeping them relevant in the age of solid-state drives (SSD). By Andy Patrizio Dec 06, 2023 4 mins Enterprise Storage Data Center news analysis Global network outage report and internet health check Cisco subsidiary ThousandEyes, which tracks internet and cloud traffic, provides Network World with weekly updates on the performance of ISPs, cloud service providers, and UCaaS providers. By Ann Bednarz and Tim Greene Dec 06, 2023 286 mins Networking news analysis Cisco uncorks AI-based security assistant to streamline enterprise protection With Cisco AI Assistant for Security, enterprises can use natural language to discover policies and get rule recommendations, identify misconfigured policies, and simplify complex workflows. By Michael Cooney Dec 06, 2023 3 mins Firewalls Generative AI Network Security news Nvidia’s new chips for China to be compliant with US curbs: Jensen Huang Nvidia’s AI-focused H20 GPUs bypass US restrictions on China’s silicon access, including limits on-chip performance and density. By Anirban Ghoshal Dec 06, 2023 3 mins CPUs and Processors CPUs and Processors Technology Industry Podcasts Videos Resources Events NEWSLETTERS Newsletter Promo Module Test Description for newsletter promo module. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe