Wireless connectivity historically has struggled to meet the stringent performance demands of enterprise networks.
December 20, 2024
Sponsored by VeloCloud by Broadcom
Today, 5G fixed wireless access (FWA) is emerging as a game-changing technology that has the potential to meet those demands. FWA is becoming competitive with fixed broadband, emerging as the second largest 5G use case for mobile operators. 5G is indeed faster and has lower latency than its predecessor technologies. But any wireless technology is still subject to bad weather, line-of-sight issues, and high deployment costs that keep its bandwidth scarce. The capabilities of SD-WAN are key to bridging the gap and transforming FWA into a robust, enterprise-ready solution.
The Enterprise Connectivity Challenge
While 5G can offer gigabit speeds that rival fiber, raw bandwidth alone isn't enough. Cellular connections still suffer from inconsistent performance, high latency, and unreliable throughput—dealbreakers for critical business applications. Voice and video communications, cloud services, and real-time data transfers require rock-solid connectivity. They need a high quality of experience, comparable to wireline, that wireless networks on their own simply can’t deliver. These services also require intelligent traffic management, guaranteed performance, and seamless failover capabilities.
AI traffic adds another layer of complexity. AI applications exhibit bursty and unpredictable traffic patterns, are highly latency-sensitive, operate on a peer-to-peer basis, and require more bandwidth and higher throughput. As companies begin to deploy retrieval augmented generation (RAG)-based systems and agentic AI, these characteristics are heightened. Most edge networks were not designed to support this kind of traffic—especially not cellular networks.
Enter SD-WAN: The Intelligence Layer
This is where SD-WAN becomes transformative. By adding a sophisticated intelligence layer to wireless connections, SD-WAN solutions can effectively solve FWA's inherent limitations. VeloCloud SD-WAN continuously monitors the quality of FWA connections, dynamically steering traffic across the best available paths to mitigate issues like high latency, jitter, and packet loss that are common in wireless networks. VeloCloud SD-WAN can also aggregate multiple FWA links or combine them with other network connections, creating converged infrastructure across fiber, cellular, and satellite.
Dynamic Multipath Optimization: Solving Real-World Connection Issues
A critical VeloCloud feature is Dynamic Multipath Optimization™ (DMPO), a technology that actively manages connection quality in real time. Consider the performance improvements:
For voice applications, DMPO can increase link quality by up to 61%
Video applications see up to 90% link quality improvement
DMPO addresses common wireless network challenges like packet loss, jitter, and latency, improving overall application performance and reliability
[caption] Link quality improvement with VeloCloud DMPO for 5G FWA (Source: Broadcom)
Smart Traffic Management
VeloCloud SD-WAN doesn't just improve connection quality. It makes intelligent routing decisions. The technology can:
Prioritize business-critical applications: VeloCloud SD-WAN can classify and prioritize applications based on their business importance. It can identify and classify more than 4,300 applications, create business policies that determine how each app is handled, and ensure that critical apps like voice, video conferencing, cloud services, AI applications, and enterprise SaaS applications get preferential treatment on the network. By identifying applications accurately through an enhanced machine learning (ML) system, VeloRAIN (VeloCloud Robust Artificial Intelligence Networking) — the AI networking architecture that underpins VeloCloud SD-WAN — ensures that each app receives the right network resources. VeloRAIN will also be able to identify encrypted AI application traffic that was previously unreadable for network optimization solutions. Organizations will be able to tailor network performance to meet the specific needs of critical applications.
Automatically route traffic through the most reliable available connection: When multiple network connections are available, DMPO continuously monitors the quality of each connection, measures metrics like packet loss, latency and jitter, and dynamically redirects traffic to the most stable connection in real time. VeloCloud SD-WAN creates a single, programmable intelligent overlay across multiple WAN links such as 5G FWA, satellite, broadband and MPLS. VeloRAIN uses machine learning to perform channel estimation for any underlay. By accurately predicting channel conditions, VeloRAIN with VeloCloud SD-WAN can adaptively manage network parameters.
Block or deprioritize non-essential applications to conserve bandwidth: This feature is especially important where connectivity is limited and/or expensive. By mapping users and applications to different QoS levels according to their requirements, VeloCloud SD-WAN can prioritize essential services by throttling non-critical apps. With its deep application recognition, DMPO can block entire classes of applications such as social media or gaming. This preserves bandwidth for essential business functions and ultimately lowers costs.
Increase security over disparate networks: VeloCloud SD-WAN enhances the security of FWA deployments by protecting data transmission across distributed and remote environments through robust encryption and security measures. It enables enterprises to maintain consistent security policies across all FWA-connected branches and remote sites, ensuring uniform protection and simplifying network management. Additionally, VeloCloud SD-WAN supports compliance with industry regulations by incorporating advanced security features such as secure gateways, encryption, and policy enforcement, helping organizations safeguard their networks while meeting data privacy and governance requirements.
Looking Forward: The Future of Wireless Enterprise Connectivity
As 5G and emerging satellite technologies continue to expand, SD-WAN will play an increasingly crucial role. Broadcom is developing emerging VeloCloud technologies such as Dynamic Application-Based Slicing (DABS), an innovative approach focusing on the application layer instead of traditional network-based slicing. Deep integration with service providers can provide multiple slices — for example, separate slices for voice and video — to further ensure that important applications are prioritized across the provider’s network. This assures quality of experience per application across multiple disparate underlying networks, whether they support network layer slicing or not.
With SD-WAN technologies providing the necessary intelligence and performance optimization, wireless networks are finally ready for prime time in the business world.
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