SD-WAN consultant & connectivity advisory for multi-location businesses

An SD-WAN consultant helps you decide whether to move from MPLS to SD-WAN, choose the right mix of broadband, dedicated internet, and wireless backup for each location, and price it competitively across carriers. Stackstone does this as an independent advisory: we don't sell a network, we run the comparison and the negotiation for you.

What does an SD-WAN consultant actually do?

The job is part network decision support, part procurement. A full connectivity advisory engagement covers:

• Connectivity inventory. Every circuit at every location, what it is, what it costs, when the contract ends, and what the site actually needs from it.
• Architecture decision support. Whether MPLS still earns its price at any of your sites, and where SD-WAN over broadband or dedicated internet access (DIA) does the job for less.
• Carrier-neutral quoting. The same requirement quoted across the providers that can actually serve each address, so carriers compete for your business instead of renewing it by default.
• Contract negotiation. Terms, rates, and service levels negotiated with the quotes as leverage, on your side of the table.
• Migration sequencing. A site-by-site plan built around contract end dates, so nothing goes down and no early-termination fees get triggered unnecessarily.

We don't sell hardware, resell circuits, or carry a quota for any carrier. If you're weighing who to trust with this, read how an independent advisor differs from a reseller.

MPLS vs. SD-WAN vs. broadband: which does each site need?

This is the decision most businesses face at renewal, and the answer is rarely all one thing. Here is the honest comparison:

In practice many businesses land on a hybrid: SD-WAN across most sites, DIA where a location needs guaranteed throughput, broadband with wireless backup where it doesn't, and MPLS retained only where something genuinely still requires it. The point of independent advice is that nobody on our side earns more if you pick one architecture over another.

Why do multi-location businesses overpay for connectivity?

Because connectivity is bought the way locations are opened: one at a time, under deadline, from whoever could install fastest. Years later the estate looks like this:

• Every site on a different provider, plan, and price, sourced at different times
• Circuits inherited from acquisitions that nobody re-evaluated
• MPLS agreements rolled over at renewal without a competitive rebid
• Bandwidth sized for what the site did years ago, not what it does now
• No single inventory of circuits, terms, and contract end dates

That drift is why telecom and connectivity is the category where our engagements typically recover 20–30%. Standardizing the estate, one architecture, benchmarked pricing, aligned renewal dates, is the same playbook we describe in technology cost reduction for multi-location businesses.

How does independent carrier quoting work?

Carriers price differently by address, and the provider with the best price at one site is often uncompetitive at the next. We take each location's actual requirement, bandwidth, uptime needs, backup path, and quote it across the providers that can serve that address. You see the quotes side by side, with our recommendation and the reasoning. Because providers may compensate us, we disclose how we're paid on every engagement, and because that compensation is broadly similar across carriers, the recommendation follows the numbers rather than a quota. Clients keep their existing vendors where those win the comparison; repricing an incumbent is often the fastest saving available. To see connectivity reviewed alongside software and vendor contracts in one pass, start with a free technology spend assessment.

What does business internet procurement look like when it's done right?

Done right, business internet procurement is boring on purpose. Each location gets a written requirement, bandwidth, uptime, backup path, before anyone talks to a carrier. Quotes come back in a comparable format, so a low headline price with a weak service agreement doesn't beat a fair price with real commitments. Installation dates get coordinated with lease dates and openings, because a site that opens before its circuit is a site running on someone's phone hotspot. And every agreement lands in a single inventory with its end date recorded, so the next renewal is negotiated on your schedule. None of this is complicated. It just doesn't happen when each site buys its own internet under deadline, which is how most estates were built.

When should you plan an MPLS to SD-WAN migration?

Before your contracts renew, not after. The 60–90 days ahead of a circuit's renewal is when you hold leverage: the carrier wants the revenue locked in, and a credible alternative quote changes the conversation. Miss that window and an auto-renewal can fix your rate for another term. With many locations, the smart move is a sequencing plan, an inventory of every end date, sites grouped into migration waves, and negotiations timed to each wave. That is also the discipline that prevents paying early-termination fees on circuits that would have expired on their own within months. For the general rule, see when to review your technology contracts.

What does SD-WAN advisory cost?

The assessment is free and takes under 30 minutes of your time: you share circuit invoices and contracts, and we come back with an inventory, benchmark comparison, and projected savings in dollars. For optimization work (quoting, negotiation, migration sequencing) we're typically compensated through standard supplier commissions, disclosed per engagement, usually at no direct cost to you. Examples of how engagements have played out are in our case studies.

By Shane Stewart, Founder of Stackstone Advisory, independent technology spend advisor.
Last updated: July 2026.

• Technology cost reduction for multi-location businesses
• When to review your technology contracts