Monopolies in access networks present challenging problems for network users: providers have no economic incentives to improve service quality or reduce cost. Virtualization of the access infrastructure can enable competition between providers without the need for deploying different physical access networks. For example, municipal broadband networks are owned by local governments and can be sliced to host multiple service providers. In this work, we evaluate the economic incentives in virtualized access networks and compare them to current access networks with limited (or no) provider competition. We also consider fine-grained competition among transit providers to reflect emerging ideas on offering network connectivity and services dynamically through marketplaces. We use an agent-based simulator in a research testbed to obtain results on quality and cost trends as well as on the ability of providers to thrive in the marketplace. Our findings show that having a shared infrastructure and multiple Internet providers is beneficial for subscribers while maintaining a sustainable ecosystem. Moreover, because the risk associated with deploying infrastructure is shared, Internet providers have more incentive to innovate. Thus, our results highlight the importance of virtualizing access networks to leverage economic drivers in this environment.