Fixed Wireless for Home Broadband is the Biggest New 5G Revenue Source

The Ericsson Mobility Report for the first quarter of 2025 is the 11th consecutive quarter in which fixed wireless has accounted for nearly all broadband net additions in the U.S. market. 

During the quarter, AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile collectively added 913,000 new connections, bringing the total number of 5G FWA connections to 12.5 million. The number of 4G connections boosts the total further. 

Globally, most fixed wireless connections still rely on 4G. 

source: Ericsson 

And even if fiber to the home is the dominant home broadband trend, fixed wireless continues to be an important platform, as digital subscriber line and hybrid fiber coax connections decrease. 

source: Ericsson 

Despite all the hoped-for advances 5G would bring in terms of new services, so far it is fixed wireless for home broadband which seems to be the biggest new revenue source for mobile service providers, aside from faster mobile internet access. And some of us would say 5G for mobile broadband is not a “new” service but simply the latest version of mobile broadband, as 4G displaced 3G, for example. 

In fact, there is an argument to be made that fixed wireless for home broadband is bigger than all the other “new” 5G services put together, even using arguably optimistic estimates of new revenue. 

5G Service Type	Estimated 2025 U.S. Annual Revenue (USD)	Notes	Sources
Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB)	$10–12 billion	Largest segment; includes premium mobile plans, high-speed data, streaming, gaming	1,2,3
Fixed Wireless Access (FWA)	$5–7 billion	Rapidly growing; over 10 million U.S. homes expected on FWA by end of 2024	4,5
Internet of Things (IoT/mMTC)	$2–3 billion	Includes smart cities, industrial IoT, logistics, and connected devices	1,2,3
5G Entertainment & Gaming	$1–2 billion	Cloud gaming, AR/VR, immersive media	2
5G Advertising	$0.5–1 billion	Targeted, high-speed, interactive ads	2
Private 5G Networks/Enterprise	$1–2 billion	Dedicated enterprise networks for manufacturing, healthcare, logistics, etc.	3

Verizon's Home Broadband Scale Gambit

Though some might criticize the debt implications or the strategy, there is a reason Verizon is pursuing an acquisition of Frontier: it is one way to gain scale in the home broadband market.

Consider that although all telcos trail the two leading cable providers (Comcast and Charter) in national market share (those two firms have at least 63 percent national share, Verizon has just nine percent share compared to AT&T at 23 percent share. 

That is a result of the smaller geographic footprint Verizon has, relative to AT&T, Comcast and Charter. 

ISP	Subscribers (millions)	Market Share (%)
Comcast (Xfinity)	32.1	32.6
Charter (Spectrum)	30.4	30.9
AT&T (Fiber)	22.6	23
Verizon (Fios)	9.2	9.3
Lumen (CenturyLink)	4.8	4.9
Cox	7	7.1
Altice USA	4.7	4.8
Other (including smaller ISPs)	1.6	1.6
Total	98.5	100

U.S. internet service providers compete on a geographic basis and not all providers face all other providers. Comcast and Charter, both cable companies, generally do not compete head to head. Neither do AT&T, Verizon and Lumen Technologies. 

But sheer numbers of homes and other locations passed vary as well, with Comcast and Charter passing the most U.S. homes. 

ISP	Estimated Homes Passed (Millions)
Comcast	60
Charter	55
AT&T	30–35
Verizon	15–20
Lumen	10–15
Frontier	10–15
Altice USA	8–10
Windstream	6–8

ISPs also generally count small business broadband accounts within their “home broadband” totals, as well. 

ISP	Estimated Homes & Small Businesses Passed (Millions)
Comcast	65–70
Charter	60–65
AT&T	40–45
Verizon	20–25
Lumen	15–20
Frontier	12–15
Altice USA	10–12
Windstream	7–9

Also, differences in “homes and businesses” passed by any single ISP’s network long have mattered for assessments of the degree of competition. For example, when looking at telco fiber-to-home competition for cable hybrid fiber coax networks, the actual degree of competition has been shaped by the huge cost of upgrading telco copper access networks to fiber. 

That has limited the actual degree of competition between telcos and cable companies for decades, as it rarely is the case that a given telco has FTTH deployed ubiquitously in all its geographies. 

ISP	FTTH Homes & Small Businesses Passed (Millions)	Total Homes & Small Businesses Passed (Millions)	FTTH as % of Total Passings
AT&T	25–30	40–45	60–67%
Verizon	17–20	20–25	80–90%
Lumen	5–7	15–20	25–35%
Frontier	6–8	12–15	50–53%
Windstream	3–4	7–9	35–45%
Consolidated	1.5–2	4–5	30–40%

Traditionally, the “best” data we have had on the market share positions of cable and telco competitors has come from Verizon areas, as that is were FTTH facilities are most-ubiquitously deployed. And in those areas, Verizon has been able to gain a bit more than 40 percent market share, while the local cable operator has been able to hold on to 45 percent to 55 percent of the market, with other independent providers holding generally single-digit shares but growing. 

In a growing number of markets third-party providers have targeted areas where telco FTTH is not available, and in such areas have generally been able to garner up to 20 percent share. 

In some instances, where a cable company mostly competes with a municipal fiber network, and the local telco has no appreciable residential and small business fiber coverage, the municipal provider tends to get 20 percent to 30 percent market share. 

Provider Type	Estimated Market Share (%)
Cable Company	60–70%
Independent ISP	20–30%
Telco (non-FTTH)	5–15%
Other ISPs	2–5%

The degree of “other ISP” market share is shaped by the coverage area selected by the attacking independent ISP. Generally speaking, such ISPs will choose portions of an incumbent’s territory to operate in, rather than overbuilding an entire city or town, for example. 

As in the case of telco-cable competition, that necessarily restricts the degree of head-to-head competition across an entire market area, and is reflected in the lower take rates we generally see when a cable company competes against any fiber provider that does not cover the whole local market.