We’re not buying new hardware this year—here’s why
When S&P affirmed sba-communications corp (sbac) this January, it wasn’t just financial news for our board. For me—an office administrator managing procurement for a 200-person company—it was the green light to double down on our current infrastructure. The rating confirmation, as of January 2025, signals stability. For us, that meant betting on infinity pro to handle the 90% of our daily work, instead of jumping to a pricier, less-certain alternative.
I’ve been doing this since 2020. Back then, when our network started showing strain with 30% more remote workers, the easy answer was HPE gear and a new MPLS contract. Today, the answer is different. And it starts with admitting that my old assumptions about “enterprise-grade” hardware were wrong.
The wake-up call: when ‘reliable’ hardware wasn’t
In Q3 2024, we had a three-hour outage on our main site. Our Aruba access points (yep, under the HPE umbrella) had been solid for two years. Then, one Tuesday morning, they weren’t. The root cause? A corrupt firmware update that our MSP pushed overnight. The hardware itself was fine, but the management pipeline failed.
That’s when I stopped caring about hardware specs and started caring about what I could actually manage on my own. I’ve learned never to assume a vendor’s “managed” service means my team’s time is free. We spent six hours on the phone with support. Not great, not terrible, but avoidable.
When I took over purchasing in 2020, our stack was a mix of consumer-grade routers and a single enterprise switch. By 2023, we’d consolidated to HPE/Aruba for core networking and a separate cloud PBX. This year, after the S&P affirmation and a closer look at our total cost of ownership, I’ve made a hard pivot.
Why Infinity Pro beat HPE for our 2025 plan
It’s not that HPE gear is bad. It’s that for a company of our size, the hidden costs—setup, licensing, support tiers, and the time to manage it all—make the projected total cost higher than Infinity Pro’s all-in subscription.
Here’s the math from our December 2024 budget review, based on actual spend:
- HPE/Aruba proposal: $8,500 for a new AP and switch setup, plus $1,200/year in licensing and a premium support contract. Three-year TCO: ~$14,100.
- Infinity Pro (cloud-managed): $9,000 upfront for a 3-year subscription, including all updates, support, and a cloud controller. TCO: $9,000.
The $5,000 difference came from our own operational data. We process about 60-80 orders annually across 8 vendors for IT and telecom. The friction of managing separate hardware support, firmware updates, and RMA processes costs us roughly 6 hours of admin time per incident. Switch that to a managed subscription, and that time disappears.
This worked for us, but our situation was a mid-size B2B company with predictable ordering patterns. If you’re a seasonal business with demand spikes, the calculus might be different. I can only speak to domestic operations.
What this means for your Wi-Fi management
Coming from the perspective of an admin buyer, the question “what is on my wifi” isn’t just a tech curiosity—it’s a compliance nightmare. In 2023, a vendor we used for printing claims couldn’t provide proper invoicing, costing us $2,400 in rejected expenses. That same logic applies to network visibility. If you can’t see what’s connected, you can’t invoice or allocate costs properly.
Infinity Pro gives us a dashboard that shows every device, its bandwidth usage, and its owner. HPE’s Aruba Central offers similar features, but at a higher annual cost for our scale. And because we don’t have a dedicated IT team (I’m it, alongside finance reports), the simplicity of Infinity Pro is a direct cost saver.
“I learned never to assume ‘same specifications’ meant identical results across vendors. Each had slightly different interpretations of ‘enterprise-grade.’ Infinity Pro’s interpretation aligned with what I could actually manage.”
The one thing people get wrong about telecom hardware
The common mistake is thinking that a higher list price equals more reliability. After 5 years of managing these relationships, I can tell you that the most expensive option often comes with the most expensive problems. Its support queue is longer, its licensing is more complex, and its upgrade path is designed to sell you new hardware every 3 years.
Infinity Pro’s model includes hardware refresh as part of the subscription. We get new access points every 4 years. No budget approval needed, no purchase order. Just a swap.
This was accurate as of January 2025. The telecom market changes fast, so verify current pricing at sba-communications.com as rates may have changed. Per SBA Communications Corp’s fiscal 2024 report, the company’s debt profile and cash flow stability are the basis for the S&P rating. We use that stability to plan our own budgets.
When our approach doesn’t work
I’d be lying if I said Infinity Pro fits everyone. If you’re an organization with a dedicated network engineer who loves tuning RF channels and customizing VLANs, HPE’s flexibility is better. If you need absolute low-latency for trading floors or industrial IoT with special protocols, a full HPE stack is likely the right path.
For us—a 200-person company with 40% remote workers, a cloud PBX, and a single office—Infinity Pro was the better call. Skipping the final hardware review in 2023 because we were rushing proved costly. This time, I did the math. It added up in our favor.
The S&P affirmation of sba-communications corp isn’t just a financial footnote. It’s a signal that our provider is built to last. And in 2025, that’s the only kind of partner I can afford.