NaaS Actually is an Old Goal

“Network as a service” is one of those baffling terms the connectivity business periodically comes up that in many ways defies explanation. 

After all, the traditional connectivity service is, in fact, “a service.” That noted, enterprises often have ways to “create their own services” using their own infrastructure, as when they use private branch exchanges (phone systems), create their own edge-based software-defined wide area networks or their own virtual private networks. 

In such cases, “connectivity” might be called a “product” created by the user, not a service supplied by a connectivity provider. Enterprises can use phone systems to “create their own voice services” or their own edge-based SD-WAN or VPNs, for example. 

Definitions of “NaaS” often focus on “cloud based” or “on demand” or “pay as you go” or “pay only for what you use” concepts, and those are generally apt concepts. 

Feature	NaaS	Traditional Telecom
Ownership	In most cases, the customer does not own the network infrastructure or services.	In most cases, the customer does not own the network infrastructure and services.
Cost	Customers pay for the services they use on a pay-as-you-go basis.	Customers pay a fixed monthly fee for the network infrastructure and services.
Flexibility	Customers can scale their network capacity up or down as needed.	Customers buy a fixed amount of capacity
Management	Customers do not need to manage the network infrastructure or services.	Customers do not need to manage the network infrastructure or services.
Security	Connectivity providers are responsible for public network security.	Connectivity providers are responsible for public network security.
Architecture	Might or might not be “cloud based”	Might or might not be “cloud based”
Ease of use	Supposed to be easier for end user to change levels of service	Difficult and manual changes of service levels
Scalability	Supposed to be easy to scale	Not terribly easy to scale up or down

So some of us might argue that NaaS) simply restates the older goal of an automated, flexible, on-demand architecture for telecom services that allows customers to add features and services easily and fast; scale usage up and down. 

The concept also means  the network operator can scale features and services on and off; bandwidth up or down “on demand,” easily and fast in response to customer demand or desires. 

So NaaS is simply a new way of stating the older goal of a flexible, automated, scalable network.