Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) was the gold standard for enterprise WANs through the 2010s — guaranteed QoS, predictable latency, private paths. But in 2026, the reality looks different: MPLS circuits in India cost ₹30,000–₹1,50,000/month per site, provisioning takes 45–90 days, and the architecture was never designed for cloud-first, distributed workforces.
SD-WAN changes every one of those constraints.
What SD-WAN Actually Does
Software-Defined Wide Area Networking separates the network control plane from the data plane. Instead of configuring each router independently, you define policies centrally — “Office365 goes over the primary fiber link; voice traffic gets WireGuard-over-4G as failover” — and the SD-WAN fabric enforces them automatically across all your sites.
At INIC, we deploy SD-WAN using MikroTik CHR (Cloud Hosted Router) with WireGuard and GRE tunnels, managed from a single dashboard. Every site gets:
- Dual-WAN failover — fiber primary, 4G/5G backup, sub-second switchover
- Application-aware routing — latency-sensitive apps (VoIP, ERP) always take the best path
- Centralized policy management — one change propagates to all sites in seconds
- Full mesh or hub-and-spoke — topology matches your business, not your legacy hardware
The Cost Comparison
| Parameter | MPLS | SD-WAN (INIC) |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost (10 sites) | ₹5–10 lakh | ₹80k–1.5 lakh |
| Provisioning time | 45–90 days | 7–14 days |
| Cloud traffic routing | Hair-pinned through HQ | Direct breakout at each site |
| Failover time | Minutes (manual) | Sub-second (automated) |
| Visibility dashboard | Per-vendor CLI | Unified web UI |
The cost delta is dramatic. Even with premium fiber circuits at each site, a 10-site SD-WAN deployment typically runs 5–8× cheaper than equivalent MPLS month-over-month.
When MPLS Still Makes Sense
We’re not anti-MPLS. There are genuine use cases: regulated industries (banking, insurance) with strict data localisation requirements, sites where internet-quality circuits are unavailable, or latency-critical industrial automation where a carrier-grade SLA is non-negotiable.
For everyone else — retail chains, hospital networks, logistics, IT/ITES — the economics of SD-WAN have crossed a threshold where MPLS simply can’t compete.
Multi-WAN Failover in Practice
A typical INIC deployment for a 15-branch retail chain in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh:
- Primary: 50–200 Mbps dedicated fiber (our ILL product) at each branch
- Secondary: 4G SIM on a MikroTik LTE modem for last-resort backup
- Tunnels: WireGuard mesh back to the INIC PoP in Bhilai (AS 152492, directly peered)
- Failover: BFD probes detect link degradation → policy-based routing shifts within 800ms
Customers see it as zero-downtime. The switchover happens before most TCP sessions time out.
What the Deployment Looks Like
- Discovery call — we map your site count, bandwidth requirements, application mix, and current WAN topology
- Design doc — hub-and-spoke vs full mesh, tunnel type, QoS policies, failover thresholds
- Lab validation — we test the config in our Bhilai PoP before a single device ships to your sites
- Phased rollout — typically 2–3 pilot sites first, then remaining branches over 2–4 weeks
- Handover + training — your IT team gets access to the management dashboard with read-only view; escalation goes to our NOC
Getting Started
If you’re currently on MPLS and your renewal is coming up in the next 6–12 months, now is the right time to evaluate a migration. The parallel-run period (running SD-WAN alongside MPLS before cutting over) takes 4–8 weeks and can be done without disrupting operations.
Talk to our network team to get a site-by-site cost comparison for your specific topology.