MetTel Becomes Starlink Reseller to Drive Managed Network Services Via Space

MetTel has completed agreements making it an Authorized Starlink Reseller for both government and commercial enterprises, enabling it to offer fully managed network services to any location worldwide via Starlink's ubiquitous laser mesh network of low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites.

Starlink provides a low-latency network in space to facilitate connectivity on Earth with the majority of users experiencing speeds well over 100 Mbps. This serves high-reliability, and high-performance applications like edge computing, remote monitoring, and back-office operations. Designed for mobility applications and challenging environments, Starlink's Flat High Performance service affords a wide field of view, offers enhanced GPS capabilities and is suitable for in-motion use for vehicles, ships and planes in approved countries.

MetTel is now delivering its award-winning SD-WAN broadband service over Starlink, enabling a whole new range of applications and expanding the definition of a "network." As a result, leaders across major sectors, including government, financial services, construction, and environmental management have adopted this powerful anytime, anywhere network connectivity.

The first to deploy SD-WAN over Starlink through its R&D unit, MetTel has now made Starlink generally available to enterprises looking for primary and secondary network access that is persistent, reliable and scalable, regardless of location or circumstances. With more than 4 million active customers all around the world today, Starlink can connect office buildings in major metro areas, remote and rugged locations, and maintain business continuity through disasters and all types of challenging conditions.

MetTel was also among the first to deliver SD-WAN technology as a fully managed service over a decade ago, including to some of the largest business installations in the world. Today industry leaders across financial services, environmental services construction as well as major government agencies are all engaged in deploying SD-WAN over the Starlink constellation through MetTel's managed network services.

"In strong partnership with MetTel, we have created a Velocloud/VMware solution that has performed very well for us," said John Pieratt, Business Unit Executive for FIS, the world's largest financial technology provider. "As far as Starlink is concerned, this is a big deal for us. It adds another option for connectivity we use to build into our designs. The satellite service allows for low latency, performs very well and provides another level of diversity –wired/wireless versus the wired/wired diversity you would get from other traditional connectivity options."

SD-WAN and Starlink are two of the fastest-growing network services in the IT communications category. "The SD-WAN market is forecast to generate a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.6% in end-user spending from 2022 through 2027," based on current SD-WAN market penetration of about 60 percent, according to the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for SD-WAN.

"We are seeing a wide range of business and government use cases that call for the secure, high-speed performance of MetTel SD-WAN and the anywhere, anytime access afforded by Starlink," said Ed Fox, CTO of MetTel. "MetTel will also leverage technologies such as private 5G and spectrum like Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) to leverage Starlink to serve fixed networks and mobile devices."

As an access technology, satellite communication has always been a challenge as signals must travel up to space and back down to earth, introducing latency and eroding performance. Many satellite communication providers use packet manipulation like queuing to provide a better consumer experience, but when using a business-oriented overlay technology like SD-WAN the packet manipulation can inhibit the performance of the network. Starlink's low-Earth orbit system provides low latency, high bandwidth transmissions without heavy processing of traditional satellite, enabling MetTel to integrate space-based access paths into its existing terrestrial SD-WAN networks.

Working with SD-WAN and Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) solutions, MetTel has built a global cloud network with 20 data centers and points of presence (PoPs) to deliver its secure networking services as a fully managed service. A recognized leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Managed Network Services for the past five consecutive years (2020—2024), MetTel has engineered some of the largest commercial implementations of SD-WAN and cloud firewall in North America, each connecting thousands of locations with high performance and scalable bandwidth.