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# Underlay Episode 64: MPLS Is Dead, Long Live MPLS
- URL: https://www.bitsinflight.com/underlay-64-mpls-is-dead-long-live-mpls/
- Published: 2019-06-26T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-16T15:35:47.000Z
- Description: Back on Network Collective's Underlay with Jordan Martin and Eyvonne Sharp. The early SD-WAN hype said MPLS was dead. Several years in, Matt Ouellette and I talked through what customers were actually doing when they picked circuits for their SD-WAN.
- Author: Jason Gintert
- Tags: media, podcast, Network Collective, SD-WAN, MPLS

*Network Collective's Underlay podcast, Episode 64\. Published 26 June 2019\. Hosts: Jordan Martin and Eyvonne Sharp. Guests: Matt Ouellette and me.*

The initial SD-WAN hype claimed MPLS was dead, because SD-WAN was going to remove any need for SLA-backed circuits. By mid-2019 the industry had several years and a lot of deployments under its belt, so Jordan and Eyvonne wanted to know whether the hype had been right. Matt Ouellette and I had both been deploying SD-WAN for real customers and had watched what they chose once the marketing wore off.

## What we covered

Whether the original "MPLS is dead" claim held up, and where it did not. What real customers were doing when they selected circuits for their SD-WAN: who went all-internet, who kept a private circuit at key sites, and why. The trade-offs that actually drove those decisions, latency, application sensitivity, voice, and the difference between what a CIO expected to save and what the network could deliver. My position by then was already the one I still hold: the obituary was premature, and the reasons why are the interesting part.

[Listen on Apple Podcasts →](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/underlay/id1223814895?i=1000442837308&ref=bitsinflight.com)