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

AI Being Adopted Faster than Most Other Important New Technologies

Some might note that businesses and consumers seem to be adopting the use of artificial intelligence chatbots faster than they have adopted the internet, smartphones, social media, e-commerce, smartphones or search. 

That partly results from the fact that physical infrastructure often takes longer to deploy than a new software app; new habits have to be built and content richness also often takes time to create. 

There was only so much users could do with 56 kbps internet connections, compared to broadband. Smartphones once were primarily useful to use email “on the go.” But that’s a far more limited value proposition than “internet in your pocket or purse.” 

Also, content-based apps including social media or search take some time to create vast libraries of content as well as network effects that have “most of the people I care to interact with on this site.” 

AI chatbots have some advantages, already. “No incremental cost” for casual use means there is not a price barrier. Also, the ability to provide “answers” in better ways than the results of search means the use case is obvious and immediate. 

Also, little technical expertise is required for a person to use an AI chatbot. 

And new habits can be adopted on the existing infrastructure (both network and device). That might be seen in the early adoption and mainstream use of important new technologies, where it often took a decade or more for “most people” to use the new technologies. 

Technology	Early Adoption	Mainstream Adoption
Internet	1970s–1990s	Late 1990s–2000s
Smartphones	1990s–2007	2008–2013
Search Engines	Late 1990s	Early 2000s
Social Media	Early 2000s	2010s
E-commerce	Late 1990s	2000s–2010s
AI (Generative)	2022–present	2023–2025

It might also be hard to say for certain, but perhaps there also is some significant element of business leaders' concern about failing to adopt AI quickly enough, given prior experience with earlier waves of technology. 

At the moment, the concern seems most logical in content-based (video, audio, text, education and learning, consulting, research, “advice” roles) or software development roles, as AI tools seem poised to displace some amount of human activity and roles. 

A World Where "Answers" are the Issue, Not "Search" Results

The replacement of traditional search with language model “answers” shifts the internet from a link-based content ecosystem to a world where traffic is less critical than relevance and authority. 

Reduced organic traffic is already happening. 

Study/Source	Content Provider	Timeframe	Reported Traffic Decline	Notes/Findings
LinkedIn (Poffel, 2025) 1	HubSpot (Marketing blog)	Mar 2023–Jan 2025, Google AI/SGE	75% decrease (24.4M → 6.1M)	Drop attributed to AI-generated answers reducing user clicks; debate over Google updates vs AI.
	Chegg (Education Q&A)	2024–2025, Google AI Overviews	34% decrease (5.6M → 3.7M)	Chegg sued Google, alleging AI Overviews use their content to keep users on Google.
	Stack Overflow (Programming Q&A)	2024–2025, AI tools (ChatGPT, Copilot)	Significant decline (unspecified)	Developers get instant answers from AI, reducing visits to Stack Overflow.
	Informational sites (various)	SGE early tests	18–64% decrease	Especially for "easily answerable" informational queries.
The Hoth (via MarketingEdge) 2	General publishers (featured in AI Overview)	Post-May 2024, Google AI Overviews	8.9% average drop	Sites not featured: 2.6% drop. Some small publishers: up to 70% decline (Bloomberg report).
Forbes (2025) 3	Industry-wide	Google AI Overviews	15–64% decline	60% of searches now yield zero clicks; top links pushed down, reducing click-through rates.
Bain & Company (2025) 4	General consumer search	2025, AI summaries in search	15–25% decrease	80% of users rely on AI summaries for 40%+ of searches; 60% of searches end without a click.
BrightEdge, SurferSEO, Conductor (via WhistlerBillboards) 5	Mail Online (news), general sites, bloggers	March–May 2025, Google AI Overviews	Mail Online: 56% CTR drop; SurferSEO: 34.5% CTR drop for position 1; Conductor: up to 60% traffic drop	Fashion, travel, DIY, cooking, tech review, and health bloggers report up to 70% traffic loss.
Ahrefs (via WhistlerBillboards) 5	Small recipe and health bloggers	2024–2025, Google AI Overviews	Up to 65% of top-page traffic lost	“How to” and “what is” queries especially impacted.
Chegg (via WhistlerBillboards) 5	Chegg (Education Q&A)	Jan 2024–Jan 2025	49% decline in non-subscriber traffic	Attributed to AI Overviews.

Websites dependent on high-volume, low-depth traffic arguably are at risk, as the chatbots can aggregate this information without linking back.

On the other hand, language models prioritize content that is authoritative, unique, or contextually rich. That doesn’t always or necessarily mean a citation, but might be the necessary precondition. 

The models likely will favor content from established experts or primary sources as well.

So content creators may need to optimize for being "noticed" and referenced by language models,  rather than ranking high in search results.

Stable coins for Walmart, Amazon?

Walmart and Amazon are said to be exploring the creation of their own stablecoins,  cryptocurrencies whose value is pegged to that of another currency, commodity, or financial instrument such as gold, Treasury bills or the U.S. dollar.

For those of us who do not buy and sell crypto as an investment or store of value, such stablecoin payment methods are a practical application of crypto in our daily lives.

New proposed legislation passed by the U.S. Senate to create a regulatory framework for stablecoins arguably will help clear the way, pegging stablecoin value to the U.S. dollar. The U.S. House of Representatives already has passed similar legislation. 

Most of the value seems tied to the ability to reduce interchange payments (usage fees, essentially) paid to credit card processors Visa and Mastercard, for example. By leveraging stablecoins, they can process payments at lower cost, with faster settlement, and maintain greater control over their transaction cost infrastructure. 

Feature	Credit Card Payments	Stablecoin Payments
Typical Fee	2-3%+ per transaction	1.5% or lower
Settlement Time	1-3 business days	Real-time or near real-time
Network Intermediaries	Banks, Card Networks	Minimal (blockchain only)
Retailer Control	Low	High
Volatility Risk	None (fiat)	Low (fiat-pegged)

Such retailer stablecoins might be considered a major boost for use of cryptocurrencies as a payment mechanism or currency. Over time, if consumers embrace the method, it also has implications for the fortunes of credit card processing networks as well as the major retailers who use the stablecoins. 

Banks presumably also will have to adjust, as they are the processing network partners and actually issue credit cards, authorize and receive payments consumers make with retailers.