Global WAN Services Revenue $76 Billion in 2020

The global enterprise wide area networks business generates about US$75.9 billion, TeleGeography says. 

MPLS represents 43 percent of that revenue; dedicated internet access 16 percent; SD-WAN two percent and local access (leased line and Ethernet connections from customer premise to carrier point of presence) 38 percent.

source: TeleGeography 

Earlier in 2020 I estimated $48 billion in 2020 enterprise WAN (long haul only) spending, which is very close to TeleGeography’s latest estimates. Global public network service revenues are about $1.7 trillion or so. So public network WAN service revenue represents about 4.4 percent of total public network revenues, with the WAN portion (excluding local access) being $46.6 billion or about 2.7 percent of global public network revenues. 

Some estimates put global public network revenue at a higher level around $2 trillion annually, in which case WAN services represent about two percent of total public service revenues. 

Not included in such figures are private WANs operated by hyperscalers and application providers, as they build and own their own networks. Nor would it be surprising if such buyers had a preference for dark fiber purchases or leases, rather than “lit” services. 

Using 2025 as a starting point for carrier SD-WAN services, it has taken five years to reach two percent share of total WAN service provider sales, or about 3.4 percent of total long-haul revenue, excluding local access. 

The expectation is that SD-WAN will cannibalize MPLS. 

Among the trends the latest TeleGeography data cannot show is the global shift to private networks for enterprise WAN traffic. 

By 2016, more than 70 percent of all internet traffic across the Atlantic was carried over private networks, not on public WAN networks. Obviously, that also means no revenue was earned directly by public service providers for carrying that traffic.

On intra-Asian routes, private networks in 2016 carried 60 percent of all traffic. On trans-Pacific routes, private networks carried about 58 percent of traffic.