The telecommunications wholesale market is entering a more mature phase in which traditional capacity sales require new ways to reach customers. Although physical connectivity remains essential, established products such as Ethernet are facing price commoditization. In this environment, automation and APIs are beginning to reshape operational efficiency, with programmability creating value beyond the initial sale.

Mauro Contardi, director of strategy and innovation at Trans Americas Fiber, said portals and APIs give customers access to self-provisioning, automated documentation and dynamic connectivity between data centers. Agility is the main differentiator: proof-of-concept tests have successfully quoted, configured and verified circuits between data centers in just two minutes. This speed streamlines maintenance and helps meet demand spikes, including those driven by AI.

To address changing customer needs, carriers are developing new service models. Cirion has introduced Network-as-a-Service (NaaS), not as a standalone product but as an overlay on its underlying infrastructure. Andrés Cáceres, Cirion’s director of product development and enablement, said the model is key to improving operational efficiency and recovering margins eroded by years of falling prices. It also allows Cirion to expand its market through third-party partnerships and agreements involving last-mile connectivity or data centers.

NaaS represents a shift in how companies procure and manage connectivity. Rather than acquiring infrastructure and capacity as fixed assets, they can consume network services under a more flexible model, adjusting capacity and features to their needs. At Cirion, the model is built around a managed services platform that allows connectivity to be configured across different locations, clouds and data centers, with capacity that can scale as business requirements change.

The model also aligns with the evolution of enterprise architectures toward hybrid and multicloud environments, where connectivity is no longer a static resource but a capability that can be managed dynamically. It aims to simplify the operation of distributed networks and enable companies to add new links, capacity or destinations without having to replicate infrastructure investments at each location.