Fixed Wireless Now Accounts for 90%-Plus of Net Home Broadband Additions

By now, it is clear that fixed wireless access does resonate with substantial portions of the home broadband market. Some of us estimate that fixed wireless appeals mostly to about 20 percent to 25 percent of buyers who take slower-speed services up to about 200 Mbps to 300 Mbps. 

“At current prices, full FWA (fixed wireless access) entry to a cable-only market, which constitutes approximately 30 percent of all cable modem subscribers in the United States, would convert 18 percent of cable-only households to FWA,” a study by EconOne estimates. 

Take rates are lower when FWA is introduced into a market with both cable operator and at least one provider of fiber-to-home service. 

“When two FWA packages are introduced, they capture a 2.5 percent market share, with 0.9 percent coming from Cable and 1.6 percent coming from Fiber,” the study also suggests. 

Separately, Leichtman Research estimates that six percent of U.S. home broadband accounts now are supplied using fixed wireless networks, and in 2023 is generating in excess of 90 percent of all net broadband account additions in the U.S. market. 

Most observers would tend to agree that fixed wireless competes with other lower-speed home broadband services operating at less than 200 Mbps. Most observers also would note that FWA suppliers are careful to offer the service only in areas where they can supply both mobile customer demand and home broadband usage without degrading mobile experience. 

For perhaps obvious reasons, the study did not study the impact of FWA in areas served by a cable operator and a telco digital subscriber line network. In such areas, one presumes there is market share shift away from DSL as well, often from one fixed network supplier to a rival mobile supplier. 

In virtually all cases studied, fixed wireless takes more share from DSL than it does from cable operators. Of course, no study funded by a telco organization may wish to point this out. 

Study	Year	Impact on Cable Market Share	Impact on DSL Market Share
Recon Analytics	2022	-1.1%	-2.2%
FCC	2021	-1.5%	-3.0%
Dell'Oro Group	2020	-2.0%	-4.0%
Leichtman Research Group	2019	-2.5%	-4.5%

We can presume that the primary form of market share shift away from DSL is from an existing incumbent telco to an attacking mobile operator.