Carriers Have Enough Spectrum Now for Fixed Wireless Growth: Entner

Fixed wireless customers are the happiest broadband customers in the U.S., according to a recent survey, Recon Analytics' Roger Entner said Wednesday during a Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy webcast. Entner said U.S. carriers probably have the spectrum holdings they need to keep up with demand for fixed offerings. Entner’s comments were based on a recent proprietary Recon Analytics survey of more than 250,000 consumers in the U.S.

Entner said the firm studied Verizon, with its stated goal of serving 5 million fixed wireless access (FWA) customers, and T-Mobile, which is targeting 7 million. “We didn’t see any problem for them to accommodate that with the existing spectrum and cellsites,” he said. “Once we go beyond that, they need to invest,” he added.

5G fixed wireless access is “changing the broadband marketplace” but needs the FCC to make more full-power, licensed, mid-band spectrum available for carriers, CTIA said in a recent report (see 2401310073).

FWA is “good enough to do what customers want it to do,” said Entner, the firm's founder and lead analyst. About 90% of FWA customers use the same carrier for their mobile wireless needs, so they were already satisfied customers before adding fixed, he said. FWA is also easy to buy and install, he said.

The survey found that FWA customers are much happier across a number of metrics than those with cable broadband, Entner said. DSL has “a lot of negative numbers,” he said. Customers can buy FWA at a store, take it home, and they know within 15 minutes if it works, Entner said. If not, they bring it back for a refund “so only happy customers are left,” he said. The survey examined customer experiences but didn’t ask about broadband speeds, he said. Most consumers don’t know how fast their broadband is and if they’re happy “the speed matters less,” he said.

Consultant Jennifer Fritzsche, managing director of Greenhill, said the data supports the trends she sees. The “bigger question” is how cable responds, Fritzsche said. She noted that AT&T is leaning more heavily into fiber, while Verizon is “all in” on FWA. FWA may prove “very disruptive” to cable operators, she said.

“Everybody is losing customers to fixed wireless,” Entner said. Wireless carriers are responsible for nearly all broadband growth, with cable and DSL losing customers, he said. We’re seeing “asymmetric competition,” he said. One bright spot for cable is it's gaining wireless customers as broadband subscribers decline, he said.

The survey found that 21% of FWA users never had home broadband before and many are in urban markets, he said. Entner said the survey found T-Mobile is drawing a larger percentage of FWA customers from cable, while Verizon was serving more customers who didn’t previously have broadband at home.

FWA is probably the only option for some rural customers, Entner said. To connect a customer eight miles down a dirt road would cost a provider $800,000, he noted. If the customer pays as much as $100 a month for a service, it would take more than 100 years for a carrier to recover that cost, he said.