Telia Recognized in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant

Last week, leading research and analyst firm, Gartner released the 2020 Magic Quadrant for Network Services, Global. We’re proud to say that Telia, backed by Telia Carrier, has been included among the 20 global network service providers covered in the report.

In this year’s Magic Quadrant, Gartner evaluated the top established global network services including MPLS, Internet WAN services, cloud connectivity, and emerging global network services, including SD-WAN, network on-demand, and NFV/vCPE services.

Telia Carrier’s inclusion is a testament of our long-standing dedication to customer satisfaction and commitment to simplifying global networking. It also marks the completion of the next phase in our journey. Just over 25 years ago, we were one of the pioneers of the Internet. Ten years later, we powered the growth of the “hyperscalers” – the cloud service and online content provider giants currently reshaping enterprise IT – which ultimately brought us to the current #1 position in our industry (according to Dyn Research). Over the last seven years, we’ve been working on the next chapter in our history: Taking enterprise networks into a new age characterized by cloudification and softwarization.

Enterprise Market in Flux

In line with our DNA, Telia Carrier’s expansion into enterprise connectivity has been a gradual and organic journey. It all started seven years ago when Telia Carrier first delivered enterprise services over our own backbone and last-mile partners, mainly to Nordic multinationals and high-profile customers in tech, media, and gaming. Three years later, when I joined the company, these initial efforts started to bear fruit. We saw the first major wins, delivering networks for customers with hundreds of sites across the world.  I was concerned if we could establish a foothold in a market, knowing the challenges larger competitors were facing. Could we make a mark in the mature WAN market?

However, what I saw was an enterprise market in flux, brought about by sometimes-appalling customer experience, and an accelerating transformation towards Cloud and Internet connectivity. The rules of the game were changing. These trends made enterprises look for new options in the service provider market. For a company like Telia Carrier, challenging the established players was a huge opportunity! And time proved us right.

As Gartner highlights in their 2020 report, the changes in buying behavior continue: “Enterprises are placing an ever-growing emphasis on their need for greater agility and especially enabling their organization’s adoption of cloud services and the Internet of Things (IoT). They are increasingly willing to consider smaller providers and innovative services, particularly those that can be consumed on an as-a-service basis.”

Simplifying Enterprise Connectivity

Led by the belief that enterprise networks should not only be software defined, but business defined, we decided to step up our efforts. By using a clean-slate approach to networking, leveraging our number 1 ranked global Internet backbone and Cloud ecosystem, and backed up our award-winning customer support, we set out to simplify the transition towards cloud-based IT and SD-WAN.

In the last two years, we have not only expanded the world’s best-connected network across Europe, the Americas, and Asia; we have also launched a modular hybrid underlay platform, expanded our local access partnerships at a rapid pace, and rolled our global SD-WAN services. Is that what took us into the Quadrant? We believe it plays a big part. But that’s not all.

What our Customers Say

There’s another major reason. We also onboarded new enterprise customers from our European and US core markets as well as from countries like Mexico and Korea. With our heritage of serving some of the most demanding customers in the world, the feedback we have had on our newest venture has made us nothing but proud. The strong level of customer satisfaction shows that Telia Carrier provides multi-national enterprises with the agility and responsiveness they need out of their network, wherever they do business.

Here’s some of the feedback we’ve heard:

“Telia gets a 10/10 because of its global WAN and Cloud strategy, service quality, delivery coordination and excellent support with C-level backing.”

Global Financial Institution

“Telia excels! It has one of the most extensive IP networks in the world and has shown great innovation in the last 3 years… A flexible partner who is easy to communicate with.”

Global energy services company

“It’s business-critical for us as a global organization to have a fast and well-functioning IT environment, regardless of whether we use our on-premise applications or cloud services. Telia’s solution works as well in Manila as it does at our head office in Stockholm, suiting our needs like hand-in-glove.”

Global business advisory firm

This makes us certain we’re on the right track. We’re energized to put in a higher gear in doing even more with the enterprise market. When we embarked on our enterprise journey seven years ago, we believed we were on to something, and it sure looks like we were right. Now we are expanding our sales and delivery teams, and preparing for the next round of product launches. You can expect to see more updates and progress about the work Telia Carrier is delivering for all of its customers, including enterprise.

Stay tuned for more!

Learn more about Telia’s position in the quadrant and download a complimentary copy of the report here: Gartner Magic Quadrant for Network Services, Global