It’s been interesting to watch cable companies downplaying FWA cellular wireless. For example, in September, Comcast President Mike Cavanaugh said that FWA wireless is a ‘near term’ issue that is competing for the lower end of the market. CEO Brian Roberts was quoted this year about competing against FWA saying, “Three companies are all simultaneously within a short period of time are all offering a home connectivity product by their own admission a lower speed, more easily congested network.”
And yet, the carriers selling FWA continue to sell at astounding numbers. AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon have consistently added 900,000 customers per quarter since the second quarter of 2022. The big cable companies have been fighting back by significantly lowering the prices of their slowest bandwidth products, and this seems to be stemming the losses due to FWA. But those lower prices come with a cost with lower margins and average revenues per customer.
I think that what has been missing from the discussion of FWA of how the technology compares to the alternatives. Consider the following table that shows average speed tests for a 12-month period in three rural counties for all broadband technologies. There is nothing unusual about these counties – they are just three places where I happened to recently do some analysis. Each county has a county seat and a few towns with cable broadband and some fiber, but rural areas are largely still not served with any fast broadband. 
It’s not hard to understand why FWA is so competitive in rural counties. It’s generally faster than fixed wireless and Starlink, and with generally a lower prices. FWA is being priced at roughly the same level as DSL in many markets.
The big limiting factor for FWA in rural markets is the broadband footprint and good speeds like those shown in the above table are only available within a few miles of cell towers. In all three counties, the FWA providers cover only roughly one fourth of the geographic footprint of the county.
Comparative speed tests are always interesting. Each county is served by a different cable company, and yet each is delivering almost the same average speeds – likely because each is operating similar DOCSIS 3.1 networks.
There are some noticeable difference in these counties that require local knowledge to explain. For example, fiber speed tests are lower in County 2 due to a fiber provider that offers a very affordable 100 Mbps fiber product that pulls down the average speed. FWA speeds are also slower in County 2 due to households still using cellular hotspots from cell sites that haven’t been upgraded to FWA.
Starlink speeds are consistent with the national average numbers I’ve been seeing – but Starlink has the most erratic variance in speed tests with a range of tests between a few Mbps and several hundred Mbps. In the three counties, the speeds on fixed wireless (from WISPs) are relatively slow since the WISPs have not upgraded to faster radios. There are counties where WISP speeds are much faster. The speed that might surprise some folks is DSL. As the copper networks have emptied of customers, the remaining customers are seeing faster speeds than just a few years earlier.
I am not convinced that speed is primary issue. Seems to me that there are several factors that may be more important than bandwidth:
* FWA is typically 1/2 the cost of Starlink and far less than cable and many WISPs. If it is “good enough to meet your needs”, why pay more?
* Unless you need or want cable TV, why add another service unless it adds significant value? If you have a cell phone and carrier relationship. Adding FWA is very simple.
* Many carriers offer bundles and/or discounts for cell + residential FWA.
* FWA is much faster and simpler to install. No truck rolls or waiting – just order and plug it in. If it works you are up and running. Easy return if it does not.
On the flip side, cable or fiber makes if you are a power user that requires high bandwidth, less speed variability due to subscriber contention, use computers more than mobile, etc.
Bottom line, FWA provides less pain and friction. If it works, why make things more complex.
I also wonder how many people opt for cable/fiber + FWA as a backup. Power users who demand reliable service, use zoom often, etc. may maintain FWA for those infrequent periods when cable/fiber are down or not working well. This may also affect rural areas more since maintenance is more difficult and expensive.
Agree. Speed has to be good enough to be functional, which many broadband products are not. After that, customers seem to value price and reliability when choosing. They key thing to remember though, is that a lot of folks taking this tests are using products they don’t like because they don’t have an alternative.
people also tend to buy the lowest speed offered because they want the best price and don’t need more speed.
MANY charts on ‘speed of service purchased’ are based almost entirely on the base offering, not what the customer would buy if given the option. 300-400Mbps from a cableco for $85 after introductory offers.
MANY MANY people would rather have 100×20 from the same company for a lower price because they simply dont have a need for more.
Even the use of the term ‘speed’ is confused, most people really don’t actually care about ‘speed’, they don’t want buffering in their videos, they want web pages/social media to load quickly. They really need consistent basic rates and consistent low latency.
100% we have so many people including DIA clients that are literally buying speed because they want reliability. It’s a broken system from bottom to top.
@trendaltoews it’s like asking for a bigger engine to get better fuel economy.
What is the difference between Fixed Wireless and FWA Cellular in the table? Isn’t it the same thing?
Not the same at all. FWA is broadband from cell companies using the same frequencies that deliver signal to your cellphone. Fixed wireless uses radios designed to just deliver broadband using WiFi and a few other sets of spectrum.
Fixed Wireless is ‘properly labeled’ as in it’s a hard-mounted radio from a wireless service provider.
‘FWA Cellular’ is falsely labelled (but the industry) because it’s not fixed most of the time, it’s essentially just a high end hotspot.