In accordance with various implementations, a method is performed at a gateway with one or more processors, non-transitory memory, and a data interface. The method includes: obtaining a request to instantiate a tunnel for data from a guest service provider (GSP) to a user device that traverses an operator network; determining whether the request satisfies tunneling criteria, where the tunneling criteria at least includes a first criterion associated with intrinsic information associated with the operator network and a second criterion associated with extrinsic information that characterizes network resources of the network operator based on a relationship between the operator network and the GSP; instantiating the tunnel in response to determining that the request satisfies the tunneling criteria, where instantiating the tunnel includes the gateway transmitting tunnel instructions to other nodes of the operator network; and routing the data through the tunnel to transmit the data to the user device.