MPLS remains the right answer for specific enterprise WAN requirements — guaranteed QoS, deterministic latency, carrier-managed infrastructure, and applications that cannot tolerate the performance variability of internet-based alternatives. RLM advises on MPLS optimization, renegotiation, and the strategic decision between MPLS retention and SD-WAN migration.
The decision between MPLS and SD-WAN is not purely technical — it involves contract economics, application risk tolerance, organizational capability, and long-term network strategy. RLM provides the objective analysis that carrier sales teams and SD-WAN vendors cannot.
A structured advisory process — from discovery and market evaluation to vendor selection and post-deployment optimization — tailored to your specific environment and objectives.
We audit your current MPLS network — topology, traffic patterns, circuit utilization, QoS configuration, SLA compliance, and cost — identifying optimization opportunities and establishing the baseline for any architecture change decision.
We evaluate the case for retaining, optimizing, supplementing, or replacing your MPLS network — weighing application performance requirements, contract economics, organizational capability, and risk tolerance.
MPLS pricing is highly negotiable, particularly at contract renewal. We provide market benchmarking and represent your interests in MPLS contract negotiations — typically achieving 20-40% cost reductions.
If migration is the right decision, we design the phased migration that retires MPLS circuits systematically as SD-WAN deployment is validated — protecting application performance throughout the transition.
These are the dimensions that consistently separate successful network deployments from costly ones — and the questions RLM will help you answer before any commitment.
MPLS CoS (Class of Service) provides end-to-end traffic prioritization that internet-based SD-WAN can only approximate. Evaluate which applications in your environment genuinely require the QoS guarantees that only MPLS can provide.
MPLS delivers deterministic latency; SD-WAN over broadband delivers variable latency. Evaluate your latency-sensitive applications — VoIP, real-time collaboration, industrial control systems — against broadband latency profiles in your markets.
MPLS pricing has declined significantly as SD-WAN adoption has grown. Evaluate your current pricing against market rates and the renewal leverage available from SD-WAN alternatives before assuming MPLS is uncompetitive.
MPLS is a carrier-managed service — the carrier handles proactive monitoring, fault management, and repair. Evaluate the operational capability of your team to manage the SD-WAN alternative before deciding MPLS overhead isn't worth the price.
MPLS-to-SD-WAN migrations carry execution risk, particularly for complex topologies. Evaluate your organization's appetite for migration disruption against the cost savings available from transition.
Many enterprises find value in a hybrid approach — retaining MPLS for the most sensitive applications while augmenting with SD-WAN over broadband for less-sensitive traffic. Evaluate hybrid economics as an alternative to full migration.
"RLM gave us an objective view of our network options that no single vendor could. We replaced aging MPLS across 40 locations and came in 28% under our original budget."
"The RLM team understood our network complexity from day one. Their vendor-neutral approach helped us find the right solution — not just the one with the biggest marketing budget."
Start with a no-cost conversation with an RLM network advisor — vendor neutral, no agenda, just clarity on the right path forward for your environment.
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