Connectivity
MPLS private WAN
Your sites joined on one private network, separate from the public internet, with priority for calls and the applications that matter, designed and managed by our own engineers on our own core network.
Who it is for
Businesses across Teesside and the North East with a head office, branches and a depot or warehouse, each connected when it opened on whatever was available at the time, where traffic between sites crosses the public internet and nobody has a single picture of the whole network. Also groups adding sites, or integrating an acquired business that arrived with its own network.
What you get
Every site on one private network that Odyssey designs, builds and manages centrally: traffic between sites kept off the public internet, calls and business-critical applications prioritised over everything else, each site on the connection that suits it, and new sites joining the same network as the business grows. MPLS, SD-WAN or both, and we recommend the mix that fits your sites and your budget.
The problem
With more than one site, you need your people and systems to work as if they were in one building, without sending sensitive traffic across the public internet.
A network that grew site by site has a familiar shape: broadband at the branches, a dedicated line at head office, a VPN that was set up by someone who has left, and phone calls between sites competing with a cloud backup for the same bandwidth. Every new site makes it harder to manage, and when the branch says the system is slow, nobody can see why.
A private WAN joins the sites on a network of their own. MPLS keeps the traffic on our core network rather than the public internet, with quality of service so a phone call or the accounts system is never held up by a large download. SD-WAN runs over whatever connections each site has, including broadband and 4G, and steers traffic across them by policy, which suits sites where a dedicated circuit is not justified. We offer both, on their own or together, and recommend the mix that suits your sites, your applications and your budget.
Thomas Armstrong's estate was fragmented, undocumented and running on ageing servers and ISDN; across a year we installed ethernet at every site and built a private WAN protected by enterprise-grade firewalls, with no unplanned downtime. The result is one network the business can see, managed by the engineers who built it.
What Odyssey provides
- A private network connecting all your sites, with traffic kept off the public internet
- MPLS on our own core network, SD-WAN over the connections each site has, or both together
- Quality of service, so calls and business-critical applications get priority over everything else
- Each site on the connection that suits it, from a leased line at head office to broadband or 4G at a small branch
- Central design, monitoring and changes by our own engineers, with a documented picture of the whole network
- New sites, and acquired businesses, added to the same network as you grow
What is included
| Included | Detail |
|---|---|
| Survey | Every site, its current connection, the applications and phones that run between sites, and where the bottlenecks are |
| Design | A documented network architecture, with the connection and equipment for each site and the quality-of-service policy for calls and critical applications |
| Site connections | A leased line, ethernet, broadband, microwave or 4G at each site as the design calls for, supplied and installed by us |
| MPLS | Sites joined over our own core network, with traffic separated from the public internet |
| SD-WAN | Where it suits a site better than, or alongside, MPLS, with traffic steered by policy across the connections the site has |
| Firewalls | The network edge protected, with internet breakout and hosted firewall protection designed in |
| Management | The whole network monitored centrally, with changes, new sites and faults handled by our engineers |
Not included, or sold separately
- The individual circuits' fix times
- Each site's connection carries its own service level; a leased line has a contracted fix time, broadband is best-effort, and the design says which is which
- Cabling, switches and Wi-Fi inside each site
- Networking and cabling, by the same engineers, priced per site
- Cloud connectivity
- Private connections into Microsoft Azure or AWS are designed as part of the WAN where you need them, priced per project
- Backup connections
- A 4G or 5G backup at a site that cannot be offline is a separate service, and the design recommends where
- The phones and applications themselves
- The WAN carries and prioritises them; hosted voice, Microsoft 365 and your line-of-business systems are their own services
How it is delivered
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Survey every site
What each site has, what it runs, who talks to whom, and where it hurts. The output is a documented picture of the network as it is, which most multi-site businesses have never had.
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Design the network
The connection and equipment per site, MPLS or SD-WAN or both, the quality-of-service policy, the firewall and internet breakout design, and a cost per site, agreed before anything is ordered.
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Order and install the connections
Each site's circuit ordered and installed, from a leased line to broadband or microwave, with the existing connections kept until the new ones are proven. The longest lead time sets the plan, and we tell you what it is.
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Join the sites
Sites brought onto the private network one at a time or in groups, out of hours where the business needs it, with calls and critical applications tested across the WAN at each stage.
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Manage it centrally
Monitoring, changes and faults handled by our engineers, new sites added to the same design, and the documentation kept current so the network stays something you can see.
Why trust Odyssey with this
-
In-house
All work completed by Odyssey employees, never subcontracted
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3
Calls answered within three rings, and a director is always reachable
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ISO
ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 certified by NQA
- Built on our own business-only core network
Client story
Thomas Armstrong
An enquiry about hosted telecoms became a full rebuild of IT, network and telephony across every site by December 2024.
Read the story
Questions people ask
Why use a private WAN instead of the internet?
A private WAN keeps traffic between your sites off the public internet and lets us prioritise calls and business-critical applications, so performance is predictable, data stays private, and a branch's slow afternoon has a cause we can see.
What is the difference between MPLS and SD-WAN?
MPLS carries your traffic across our own core network, separated from the internet, with quality of service built in. SD-WAN runs over whatever connections each site has, including broadband and 4G, and steers traffic across them by policy. We offer both, on their own or together, and recommend the mix that suits your sites and budget.
Does every site need the same type of connection?
No. Each site gets the connection that suits it: a leased line where the site is business-critical, business broadband where it is not, ethernet or microwave between buildings you own, and 4G as a backup or for a small site. The design says which.
Can calls be prioritised over other traffic between sites?
Yes. Quality of service gives calls and business-critical applications priority across the private network, so a cloud backup or a large download never makes a phone call break up.
Can we add sites later?
Yes. New sites join the same private network as the business grows, and an acquired business's sites can be brought onto it as part of integrating the acquisition.
Can the WAN reach our servers in the cloud?
Yes. Private connections into Microsoft Azure or AWS, or into the Odyssey private cloud, are designed into the WAN where you need them, so your servers are on the same private network as your sites.
Who manages the network once it is running?
We do. The whole network is managed centrally by Odyssey's own engineers and built on our own business-only core network, with nothing subcontracted, and the documentation is kept current.
Will the migration disrupt the business?
Sites are moved one at a time or in groups, out of hours where you need it, with the old connections kept until the new network is proven at each stage. Thomas Armstrong's year-long rebuild across every site completed with no unplanned downtime.
Challenges this helps with
Related services
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