The Fixed Wireless Network Opportunity: Update

By Iain Gillott, WIA Chief Technology Advisor

The following is an executive summary of WIA’s latest white paper. Download now to learn more about fixed wireless deployments in the United States.

The U.S. fixed wireless access (FWA) market has been one of the standout success stories for mobile network operators (MNOs) in the past 18 months. Many are highlighting FWA as an example of how 5G networks can generate new revenues and opportunities with new services and capabilities. In addition, Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs) continue to support the FWA market using a range of technologies and spectrum bands.

The U.S. fixed wireless access market has grown considerably in the past 18 months since WIA published its first research on the segment. At the end of 2022, AT&T, T-Mobile, UScellular and Verizon reported a total of more than 1.9 million FWA subscribers. As of the end of first-quarter 2024, the number for the top four MNOs has more than quadrupled to 8.3 million users. At the end of the second quarter, the top four MNOs reported more than 9.85 million users. Further, Verizon has just recently expanded its FWA customer forecast to 8-9 million users.

In fact, FWA has enabled telecom providers to claim nearly 100 percent of the U.S. broadband industry’s (telecom, cable and satellite) gross adds for the past several quarters.

In addition, the wireless industry infrastructure ecosystem has also been updating network technologies with the goal of improving FWA services and reach. As the popularity of FWA has increased, industry vendors are responding with new solutions to continue that growth.

FWA users consume far more bandwidth than the average smartphone user. For example, at the end of 2023, the average smartphone user in the U.S. consumed about 28 Gigabytes (GB) of data per month. But the usage estimates for FWA users range from about 300 GB per month up to more than 500 GB per month. In other words, one FWA household uses about 10 times to 18 times more data than the average smartphone user.

FWA networks deliver a range of speeds to homes and businesses. Typical high speeds are in the 300 – 500 Mbps range (and sometimes more). Some connections are slower depending on the local RF conditions, placement of equipment and service offered by the provider. But in most cases, speeds exceed 50 Mbps and are comparable to cheaper options available from cable and fiber providers.

These new FWA subscribers have been supported by the MNOs deploying more 5G capacity, generally using mid-band spectrum. The MNOs have been able to maintain or even grow network speeds even as bandwidth-hungry FWA users have been added to the networks.

It appears there is still considerable growth left in the tank. iGR estimates that the total addressable market for FWA networks is 25.4 percent or 36.9 million U.S. households. This means more than one-quarter of U.S. homes could be served by FWA, spectrum and technology permitting.

  • FWA has been very successful for T-Mobile, which raised its target and now aims to have 12 million 5G broadband customers by 2028.
  • Verizon has stated it expects to have a FWA base of more than 5 million subscribers in 2025 but that its network can support “way more.”
  • Verizon has also stated that it is targeting businesses with FWA service. A good example would be food-truck vendors that need a reliable internet connection to process payments but are not at a permanent location.

Often, FWA is referred to as an alternative to fiber and hybrid-fiber coaxial (HFC) networks with the implication being that FWA is inferior to those wired options because FWA cannot provide the same level of throughput and/or capacity. But it is also now clear that FWA can support households using hundreds of GBs per month. FWA has proven it has a valid role to play in the U.S. broadband market and can meet the needs of millions of consumers and businesses.

Direct cost comparisons between fiber-to-the-home (FttH) and FWA networks is difficult without starting the discussion with “it depends.” Each broadband solution has costs that depend on topography, geography, household density, and household construction type, among other items. For example, fiber/HFC networks have high upfront costs largely because of the civil work required to install the conduit, innerduct, pulling the fiber-optic cabling, splicing, terminating and more. And, of course, a physical wire or fiber must be run from the access point to each household. With FWA, the clue is in the name: there are no wires between the tower or small cell and the household. That saves the costs associated with digging trenches or installing overhead lashing wires to the household.

However, examples of cost comparisons are valid.

FttH: typical per-household fiber deployment costs vary from a low of approximately $800 in a dense urban neighborhood up to $6,000 or more in a rural area.

FWA: typical per-household costs for FWA range from less than $200 per household to about $1,800 – this depends on the spectrum used, the household density and the household take rate. In the case of MNOs using existing mobile networks, it can be argued that the network cost of supporting a FWA household is minimal.

In the past 18 months, FWA services have proven that they can be competitive with cable and fiber and are the broadband network of choice for millions of consumers and businesses that have options. FWA is no longer just for those households that have no other options – FWA is now the preferred broadband solution for homes and businesses. The recent developments in the industry complement the decades-old WISP market that is highly fragmented across more than 1,700 wireless internet service providers. Most of these WISPs are privately held and provide FWA service in rural areas of the U.S. that typically do not have, or have limited access to, wired broadband services. The type of service provided includes internet connectivity to residences and businesses, and sometimes voice and/or other content-related services.

Download the full white paper here.