- About 7.8 million U.S. homes are currently subscribed to fixed wireless access
- New Street estimates the biggest wireless operators have capacity to support 16 million
- But they’ll run out of wireless capacity in 2029
The analysts at New Street Research calculated that the top four U.S. wireless operators could support as many as 16 million fixed wireless access (FWA) subscribers in total before running out of capacity on their networks.
According to a new Broadband Market Tracker from Parks Associates, FWA adoption through a mobile network operator hit 7.8 million U.S. residential home internet connections in the first quarter 2024.
To determine that FWA adoption could grow to 16 million, the New Street analysts extrapolated the FWA model from T-Mobile to calculate how much FWA capacity the top four wireless providers might have.
“T-Mobile has consistently maintained that they have capacity to support 7-8 million FWA subs,” wrote New Street. “If we apply T-Mobile’s framework to the rest of the group, there is capacity to support 16 million FWA subs.”
This is the best estimate, assuming carriers limit FWA to excess capacity on their mobile networks. If carriers push their capacity limits, they might be able to increase FWA targets to 19 million.
“A significant change in network technology or spectrum availability would be required to increase capacity by more under the current model; neither is likely in the next five years,” New Street noted.
While T-Mobile is targeting 7-8 million FWA subscribers, Verizon is guiding for 4-5 million. AT&T has consistently downplayed its FWA ambitions, but the analysts estimate that AT&T would have enough wireless capacity to support 3-4 million FWA subscribers. Dish (if it survives) would have capacity for a further 1 million.
“Carriers could change the model by using millimeter wave spectrum to target MDUs [multi-dwelling units], though we believe this strategy would be slow and costly to implement,” wrote New Street.
They said the mobile operators could build a point-to-multipoint network targeting MDUs, along the lines of the Starry model. There are 21 million households in large MDUs that could be targeted. But implementing this model would require deals with landlords, making it slow and expensive.
Good news for cable
FWA has been eating cable’s lunch the past couple of years. Cable operators are losing broadband subscribers each quarter, and it looks like many of those subs have been choosing FWA, instead.
On its most recent earnings call, Dave Watson, CEO of Comcast Cable, said competition has also heated up in the small and medium business segment, coming from the FWA services now offered by T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T.
So cable operators will be relieved to see that based on its 16 million forecast, New Street says FWA will slow sharply over the next couple of years.
“We expect net adds for T-Mobile and Verizon to slow as gross adds flatten and disconnects continue to grow with the base,” wrote the analysts. “Net adds will slow further as the companies start running out of capacity, with both reaching their thresholds in 2025 or 2026.”
AT&T started late, and Dish hasn’t entered the market yet. But if both pursue the same path as T-Mobile and Verizon, New Street estimates the group will run out of capacity toward the end of 2029.