FWA is paying the bills, but the 5G market is still chasing dreams. For all the frustration about 5G money-making, FWA has been a revelation for operators; here we consider the impact and implications of FWA for telecoms, plus network gains with NSA and likely service gains with SA. (Note, this is an excerpt from a new 5G Market Pulse report, available to download for free<\/em> <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>; the original introduction and initial discussion have been published online<\/em> <\/em>here<\/em><\/a> and <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n Chart smashes <\/strong>\u2013 Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) is a surprise cash cow for 5G operators, with fast rollouts, strong ARPUs, and sticky customer engagement.<\/p>\n Heritage flops<\/strong> \u2013 otherwise, 5G services, mostly on NSA, are familiar 4G-plus exercises, affording little network or service differentiation and few monetization opportunities.<\/p>\n Sleeper hits<\/strong> \u2013 private 5G networks and new public 5G (SA) features promise speculative gains, but their revenue impacts are unproven and unevenly distributed \u2013 for now.<\/p>\n But it is not so clear, actually (see previous section<\/a>) \u2013 neither in terms of NSA money-making until now, nor SA money-making in the future. On the first score, so-called fixed-wireless access (FWA) broadband, which uses 5G NSA\/SA in place of fibre for wireless-hub backhaul in homes and businesses, has been a revelation. Spirent has a line graph showing global FWA launches on a steepening path, between its NSA and SA numbers (see page 5<\/a>); it reads 162 launches at the end of 2024, meaning FWA is being offered on 46 percent of NSA networks, and 25 percent of all networks. \u201cIt is not a different version of 5G, but it is worth highlighting because of its success,\u201d says Douglas. \u201cWhich will grow with later 5G releases.\u201d<\/p>\n Ericsson expects the number of FWA connections to more than double from 159 million to 350 million in five years (see below). Speaking at a pre-MWC event in London in February, the Swedish vendor told a packed house that FWA broadband connections are growing at a three-times faster rate than fibre broadband connections. \u201cWe underestimate the business opportunity and the traffic profile significantly,\u201d says Erik Ekudden, chief technology officer at the firm. \u201cEleven percent of all the world\u2019s fixed broadband connections already use FWA technology today. In five years, that will grow to 18 percent. And there is a reason FWA is such a great service: it is priced in the right way, and it is flexible \u2013 and you order it and get it immediately. More importantly, [carriers] get a higher net promoter score.\u201d<\/p>\n That, and the fact that FWA, more than any other novel 5G service, brings home the bacon.<\/p>\n Douglas rejoins: \u201cA lot of operators are not only meeting their FWA subscriber targets, but also extending their FWA bases in a substantial way.\u201d He has another graphic (above), which shows top-line ARPUs on straight FWA subscriptions: carriers in the US are charging about $46 per subscription, on average; operators in Western Europe and the Middle East are taking the equivalent of $35 (\u20ac32) and $70, respectively; providers in India are scraping $12 per month. But these numbers do not reveal its real value to carriers. Its secret sauce, so mysterious to 5G, is the chance to upsell and cross-sell additional services to homes and offices \u2013 \u201cmobility plans, family plans, security services,\u201d says Douglas. \u201cThe real ARPU from FWA is perhaps even two times higher than the straight service subscription. It is very lucrative.\u201d<\/p>\n More than this, it is a good churn machine for mobile operators \u2013 \u201clike, one carrier might convert you from a rival handset subscription to a family plan, and take deals for four or five devices on top \u2013 and then upsell another package for premium content\u201d. There is a major drive on additional home security services, he says. \u201cA lot of them are doing this exceptionally successfully at the moment.\u201d\u00a0 On his firm\u2019s workbenches, carriers are testing how to retain their new advantage \u2013 to stop the churn machine turning the other way.\u00a0 \u201cA lot of the focus in testing is around customer retention \u2013 to try to make sure they don\u2019t lose any FWA customers. Because they see FWA as a big opportunity to grow and expand customers in terms of the amount they spend. It is a massive focus.\u201d<\/p>\n Belkhit at ABI Research calls FWA a \u201cpillar of 5G monetization\u201d, already. Indeed, leading US operators have updated their FWA targets, he says. \u201cGrowth is expected to continue.\u201d SA upgrades will bring \u201cmore differentiated\u201d services, he says. \u201cThere is increasing focus on the enterprise market for FWA [too],\u201d he notes. His colleague, Matthias Foo, leading ABI Research\u2019s research in the Asia Pacific (APAC) market, suggests \u201cstrong FWA growth\u201d is also expected in India, where the likes of Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel are \u201cinvesting significantly\u201d in the technology. \u201cInitial reports show growing momentum for FWA adoption in the country,\u201d he says. But FWA is an outlier, so far, in terms of 5G\u2019s money-spinning credentials. \u201cBeyond FWA, there\u2019s not much to cheer about,\u201d reflects Bolan at Dell\u2019Oro Group.<\/p>\n Certainly, if you consider the industry\u2019s own forecasts from five years ago about a surge in data traffic on 5G smartphones, the turnaround has not materialised. In 2019, Ericsson said in its bi-annual \u2018mobility report\u2019, which works as a yardstick and a tub-thumber for the market, that data traffic on consumer devices in North America would reach 45 GB per month with 5G by 2024, from an average of closer to 20 GB; five years later, its most recent instalment says data traffic has topped-out at about 22 GB. Douglas responds: \u201cYeah, but you\u2019ve got to watch with those figures. The vendors care more about data usage than the operators. It doesn\u2019t really impact the operators whether people use all their data or not. Their packages sell out; there\u2019s only so much you can consume, after all.\u201d<\/p>\n He adds: \u201cThe challenge with 5G is the same as it was with all the advanced 4G releases \u2013 where consumers struggled to discern any benefit. Nobody has come up with a service that only works on 5G; you can do most of it on a good 4G network. It\u2019s only these private enterprise cases that are different \u2013 because they need SA capabilities, especially on the uplink. And so (except for FWA) 5G has morphed around the opportunity to optimise networks and spectrum\u2026 Lots of capabilities will only be unlocked with release-17\/18; most operators today are only on release 15, with a smattering of 16. Most don\u2019t have a lot of 5G features yet.\u201d<\/p>\n And actually, despite SA networks going into enterprises at a faster clip, most private \u20185G\u2019 networks are 4G networks, and most \u20185G\u2019 apps work fine on them.<\/p>\n Which returns to this idea, voiced by Pongratz at the top, that 5G might be considered \u201cmostly-on-track\u201d so long as it is judged by its inward ability to bring new efficiencies rather than its outward ability to create new services. Its network gains are largely down to large-scale multiple-input\/output (massive MIMO) technology in sub-6 GHz spectrum \u2013 so large antenna arrays drive network capacity and spectral efficiency to serve multiple users simultaneously, and generally to improve performance. Pongratz chimes in again: \u201cMassive MIMO has exceeded expectations, scaling more quickly and broadly than anticipated\u2026 It has played a crucial role to extend coverage, allowing operators to leverage 4G infrastructure and reduce data delivery costs.\u201d<\/p>\n In London, Ekudden tells media and analysts that the pieces are in place and the future is within grasp. \u201cWe\u2019ve been living through this journey \u2013 connecting everyone, building-out the mobile internet and cloud over many years. But this would be a relatively flat outlook if we don\u2019t see more usage and opportunities. So what is the inflection point? It is for those operators that are building out 5G as much as possible \u2013 mid-band, with massive MIMO, carrier aggregation; upgrading to SA \u2013 [to make] sure that the network is fit for all these new use cases and experiences: fan experiences, points-of-sale, mission critical workers, medicine. It is really [about] unleashing a next wave of innovation in new use cases, new sectors, new business models, and new capabilities beyond connectivity,\u201d he says. (See pages 17 and 19<\/a>.)<\/p>\n The networks might be getting fitter, by degrees, as 5G SA lands, but not much else has really changed, agrees Pongratz. \u201cIt is mostly a 4G-plus story, and operators and enterprises are struggling to move beyond existing use cases. 5G is allowing operators to reduce the cost and expand the pipe. But the ARPU-upside with existing use cases and the revenue growth beyond them are both limited \u2013 and too small to change the trajectory. While 4G also failed to change the revenue trajectory, it did improve the user experience \u2013 and the expectations to move beyond (just faster) mobile broadband (MBB) were not as hyped. So when we say things are on track, it is because we never expected 5G would change the revenue trajectory for the carriers \u2013 this initial phase was all about MBB efficiencies.\u201d<\/p>\n And there, at once, the joke is on anyone who believed the crazy 5G hype in the first place. His analyst firm didn\u2019t, the message goes \u2013 and it doesn\u2019t buy it, now, just because industry money is finally going on proper 5G capabilities in SA architectures. \u201cYou have to calibrate expectations and align investments with what is paying the bills today, and the likelihood potential new use-cases will materialise for the masses,\u201d says Pongratz. When it finally comes, in a wave on global 5G SA networks, 5G-Advanced will provide \u201cmore tools to improve efficiency\u201d, he says, while \u201calso addressing shortcomings that could realise more aspects of the industrial 5G vision\u201d.<\/p>\n But note the modal auxiliary: \u2018could\u2019. Anything could happen. Note, also: this enterprise story, referenced several times, already, will be revisited.<\/p>\n![\"image\"](\"https:\/\/www.rcrwireless.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/image-1024x341.png\" "\\"The")
<\/a>![\"FWA2\"](\"https:\/\/www.rcrwireless.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/FWA2-1024x471.png\" "\\"The")
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