“Abstraction” is what makes any over-the-top internet application or service possible and viable. So the possible coming issue is whether abstraction of network functions flowing from network functions virtualization and software defined networks might lead to the feasibility of “abstracted” or “virtual” service providers.
One example of the business value of abstraction is the ability to construct a global business, when scale matters. Compare the operations of webscale firms such as Amazon, Facebook or Google with the operations of mobile service providers, for example. By 2014, it was clear that the app-based providers had gotten more scale than nearly every mobile service provider.
Think about a mobile virtual network operator model “on steroids,” where a service provider can assemble a full network and services from one or more underlying networks, as Google Fi, which dynamically connects its mobile users using Wi-Fi, Sprint or T-Mobile US networks.
Future networks, built on NFV and SDN principles, could well enable new service providers who federate resources from many physical networks.
It is the AWS model applied to the connectivity business. As enterprises switched from reliance on owned infrastructure to using cloud services platforms, so it might eventually make financial sense for some connectivity providers to create their own networks on a virtual basis, especially when aggregating assets from multiple physical networks has value.
In other words, it might be possible for entities such as Amazon and others to operate their own access networks, the same way they now operate their own wide area networks. Google actually already operates its own mobile and fixed networks.
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