t a given NGN is built efficiently and at lowest cost, without the encouragement of competition? Regulators typically had to focus in most cases on the telecom/ICT areas where there was the least competition, which is the highest barrier to market entry by new players. So, it appears that mobile and fixed access networks are the most critical areas to regulate, particularly mobile access where the resources (e.g. available spec- trum) are limited and hence there can be only several competing telecom operators on a national level. Deploying fixed access (which will be only fiber-based in the fixed networks, looking toward the future) has high costs per customer and therefore it is less cost-effective for the telecom business (especially when it does not bring return of investments or increasing revenues from customers), hence fixed access is a natural bottleneck, particularly because it is not practical to have many fiber cables everywhere from different service suppliers (although that is also possible and also existing practice in certain areas). The competitive supply of ultra-broadband fixed access networks can be increased if infrastructure sharing is permitted or even enforced (e.g. by regulatory support). In such cases, the ducts and cabinets can be reused to reduce applicable costs for alternative providers to provide fixed fiber access to their customers. With the development of NFV and SDN, and their application in NGN telecom oper- ator networks, there will be even greater possibilities for resource sharing by network and service providers based on network virtualization (e.g. LINP, NFV) and softwariza- tion (e.g. SDN). In developed ICT markets this process of further development of NGNs toward future networks can be left to free market forces; however, that should be monitored regarding QoS and even enforced when necessary. In all countries the network virtualization (e.g. network slicing) may be a subject for regulation regarding QoS and QoE. In some countries, such as those with developing telecom/IC