My company is coming up on the end of our current service contract with our MPLS provider. While the way forward isn't paved yet (the team is split with 50% wanting to try an SD-WAN solution, and 50% vehemently opposed to doing so) one thing is clear, we're definitely leaving our current provider.
We might end up going MPLS with a different provider, at this point, or try something new. In the "something new" category we were thinking of using LTE instead of physical circuits.
I know the biggest challenge there is price. It's going to be hard to do so affordably. (Though I think even the worst case is going to end up costing a lot less than our MPLS)
By the way I'm a more junior member of the team, so the real decision makers are not me. But I'm part of the team and we're trying to do research.
A lot of us like the idea of using LTE, because it eliminates having to wait for circuit installs and build out times. We have about 50 branch offices and trying to coordinate installing brand new circuits in all 50 seems like an almost impossible task. With LTE we could order the SIM cards, slap them in a router, and ship them. "Look, ma! No Circuits!"
Then no matter if we use SD-WAN, or remain with Cisco ISR's, we can still just build VPN tunnels back to the mother ship.
What kind of issues do you think we'd have? I know LTE is supposed to perform fairly well and be fairly steady, as long as you have a good signal. If you don't have a good signal, then it'll be worst than the slowest T1 line...
Do you think it could support applications like VoIP and Interactive Video?
A few members of our team think it couldn't. They say we have to keep at least "some" mpls presence used just for VoIP because they think no other solution could possibly support VoIP.
What do you guys think?
We'd of course look for diversity so we'd probably have one AT&T and one Verizon SIM per branch if we go this route.
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