%0 Journal Article %J Wiley 5G Ref: The Essential 5G Reference Online, Wiley InterScience %D 2019 %T Techno - economic analysis for programmable networks %A Christos Bouras %A Anastasia Kollia %X The forthcoming advent of the fifth generation of mobile networks (5G) will boost technology, as new solutions are needed to meet the growing demands of 5G. These novelties are pinpointed both by scientists and elecommunication providers. Programmable logic solutions are going to be used, as they accumulate financial, performance and environmental benefits. The programmable logic nowadays is represented by the combination of the Software Defined Networking (SDN) technology with the Network Function Virtualization (NFV). This combination not only reduces hardware as most network components are replaced by Network Functions or Virtual Machines (VMs), but also offers better resource allocation and provides more bandwidth, CPU etc. to the parts of the network that become more congested. Solutions, such as SDN, may concentrate fundamental advantages and profits, but they appear to face basic problems and therefore, key questions are raised concerning their cost and safety. One of these issues contains all the expenses that need to be made for the acquisition of the technology and the adjustments that need to be incorporated into current infrastructure so that it is able to cover SDN networks as well. This paper analyses a programmable model of SDN combined with NFVs. A Sensitivity Analysis (SA) is held to enable determining the factors, that largely influence the pricing so as to propose ways to significantly reduce several types of costs and propose solutions or research directions to cut down on the expenses of these network factors. %B Wiley 5G Ref: The Essential 5G Reference Online, Wiley InterScience %G eng