Fixed wireless access, or FWA, is still relatively new and in the early stages of its growth. However, as growth opportunities in more traditional wireless technologies slow down due to the ubiquity of mobile devices, service providers are turning to new areas, such as FWA, that still have significant upside.

Essentially, FWA is the technology that enables wireless carriers to enter into the broadband business and compete with wireline broadband from cable television and telephone companies.

“FWA is expanding the competitive playing field for home and business users. This threatens longstanding and traditional wireline services [but] also potentially expands the entire sector,” said Jeff Kagan, an Atlanta-based wireless analyst.

In general terms, 5G FWA is a wireless network infrastructure that is based on the latest cellular technology, 5G, and installed in a fixed location, such as a business or home. The idea is that the FWA device stays in the same location and connects to the same set of towers or antennas during its entire lifecycle. This is in contrast to roaming, where the device moves around, according to Beth Cohen, an advanced networking and security product strategist at Verizon.

Cohen said 5G FWA offers several benefits, including the following:

  • Simplified installation. “Far and away the most attractive feature for temporary use cases,” she said. “Stand it up and tear the service down in minutes.”
  • Addresses the last-mile problem. “This one is for the telecoms. Last-mile fiber and fiber in sparsely populated areas have always been expensive and difficult to deploy,” Cohen said. “The fewer locations that can buy the services, the less profitable it is to install.” FWA offers a lower-cost alternative by providing a centralized architecture for bringing fiber to the towers and FWA from the towers to users.
  • Satellite alternative. In rural areas, when FWA is available, it is cheaper, more reliable and has far more capacity. It represents a win-win all around, Cohen said.
  • Wireless backup. 5G FWA provides low-cost failover service for commercial locations.

U.S. FWA market growth and trends

The growth potential in the 5G FWA market is impressive, especially as the technology continues to improve. Potential improvements include the ability to harness higher radio frequencies, deploy radio repeaters and develop new technologies, said Peter Rysavy, president of Rysavy Research.

The success of FWA could boil down to the quality, connectivity, reliability, speed and latency of FWA services.

The initial rollout a couple of years ago went well, with many signups on the consumer and commercial sides, according to Cohen. However, service uptake has slowed down a bit since then, and the loss of federal funding for rural buildouts will slow it further.

“The bait-and-switch of providing LTE instead of 5G in some areas, and difficulties related to signal strength and antenna locations — all issues that can be overcome in time — set back the more rapid and widespread deployments,” Cohen said.

An October report from Omdia, an Informa TechTarget company, predicted that global FWA subscriptions will more than double by 2030. The report highlighted strong momentum across markets led by India and the U.S. and identified FWA as the fastest-growing broadband access technology.

Telecom provider Ericsson estimated FWA lines will grow from 160 million at the end of 2024 to 350 million by 2030, with 80% of this growth attributed to 5G, said Roy Chua, founder and principal at AvidThink, a research and advisory firm. He said most operators in four of six regions now offer FWA, and there is a growing shift toward speed-tiered pricing.

Chua added that the financial disclosures of telecom operators in the U.S. still show strong FWA momentum. T-Mobile maintained its position as the leader in the FWA market with over 7.3 million customers. In Q2 2025 alone, the carrier added 454,000 FWA lines.

“Within the U.S. market, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless have been the most aggressive from the mobile operator side, while AT&T is focused on fiber first and then FWA,” said Earl Lum, president of EJL Wireless Research. “I think things are slowing down now as capacity for FWA is dwindling for T-Mobile, since they are using C-Band [midband] spectrum and not mmWave like Verizon Wireless,” Lum said.

Meanwhile, Verizon reached 5.1 million FWA subscribers in Q2 2025 by adding 275,000 new lines. AT&T surpassed 1 million subscribers in Q2 2025, with 203,000 net additions in the quarter.

Every mobile network operator has a different approach to 5G FWA, Rysavy said. For example, T-Mobile has focused on midband spectrum, while Verizon works on mmWave. Over time, each method of providing FWA will garner millions of users, he said.

Enterprises and consumers can both benefit from FWA; however, currently, most interest in FWA deployment focuses on how it can provide connectivity to individual users. A strong FWA connection can enable individuals to connect to enterprise networks, especially in remote areas with limited connectivity options.

FWA enterprise use cases

Cohen said one of the best use cases is FWA installations that serve as low-cost and effective backups to wireline connections for retail and other companies with large numbers of small locations spread over long distances. “It is a very attractive option for construction sites,” she said.

Other significant use cases include the following:

  • Retail sites. Stores and restaurants can deploy FWA to provide reliable, hassle-free wireless internet, ensuring secure failover to prevent business operations from being interrupted by outages, Chua explained. Businesses with multiple branch offices, including food chains, banks and retail stores that require connectivity for point-of-sale machines and Wi-Fi can have a single mobile provider across all locations, assuming FWA is available in those locations — or even dual FWA providers if more reliability is needed.
  • Logistics hubs. Businesses with IoT-enabled machines monitoring operations in remote locations where wired networks aren’t feasible can use fixed wireless access points to maintain uninterrupted, secure connectivity, Chua said.
  • Temporary sites. FWA can be deployed quickly by people without specialized skills, providing fast and reliable internet for short-duration events such as movie premieres and pop-up stores. FWA might also be a suitable option for companies that frequently relocate their offices or use temporary setups, he said.
  • Disaster recovery. Enterprises with critical connectivity needs, such as financial institutions and healthcare facilities, can use FWA as a WAN failover option. The router automatically switches the entire location’s traffic to the mobile network when primary wired connections fail, Chua explained.

Fiber vs. FWA: Trade-offs for businesses

To decide whether to go the 5G FWA route, organizations should consider it from several perspectives, Cohen said.

“For businesses, it really is apples and oranges. If the business has access to fiber, while it might be more expensive — although they are usually comparable — fiber is the better technology in terms of throughput and reliability until we have a good solution for network slicing to better control capacity,” she said.

Deployment time might be a concern to a business in the short term, but generally once fiber is in, it just works, she said.

“Wireless is a bit fussier to deploy because you need to find the location on the site with optimal signal strength to figure out the best location for the connectivity equipment,” Cohen said. “For kiosks, construction sites, pop-ups and other temporary installations, FWA is perfect.”

From the telecom provider perspective, FWA infrastructure is still cheaper to install than fiber, particularly in less densely populated areas, she said. Telecoms must also ensure there is sufficient capacity to support the number of subscribers. That has been a problem for carriers with less disciplined practices around how to best share the network between mobile and FWA traffic.

Chua explained the pros and cons of each option in a head-to-head comparison:

  • Cost. “FWA often wins on upfront and near-term capex by avoiding make-ready and pole and permit work. Fiber capex is higher but can be amortized over its long life,” he said.
  • Performance. Chua called fiber the “reference” for low latency and high reliability. It has the lowest latency among fixed access types, while FWA latency varies by RF conditions and network loads.
  • Throughput. “Modern 5G FWA commonly delivers 100-300-plus Mbps with continued gains from midband carrier aggregation or 5G-Advanced. However, fiber can scale to multi-Gbps symmetrically,” he said.
  • Time to service. FWA typically deploys in days, while fiber can take weeks or even months due to right-of-way issues and make-ready work, Chua said.
  • Where each one fits. “Choose FWA for speed to open, temporary sites, hard-to-serve or rural areas or as a diverse failover. Choose fiber for long-term, high-density campuses, latency-sensitive workloads, or guaranteed service level agreements requiring deterministic performance,” he said.

Benefits and challenges of FWA strategies

Despite its growing popularity, 5G FWA brings challenges, such as fundamental design and coverage constraints.

“I think the most significant challenge is that the wireless networks were designed for fixed locations and relatively steady traffic volumes using a hub and spoke model for service delivery,” Cohen explained. “Mobile networks are designed for far more devices, but those devices move around and are far more spread out, and each device creates less traffic.”

For now, coverage typically follows the same locations as mobile coverage maps and uses the same towers. Telecom providers might need to rethink that approach if they’re serious about expanding their FWA footprints. They need to treat it almost as a separate and distinct use case with its own traffic patterns, she said.

Spectrum limitations, particularly for midband spectrum, are the greatest constraints for FWA, which limits the number of customers an operator can support, Rysavy said. Operators can densify their networks with more cell sites and small cells, but doing so is expensive, and the permitting process can be time-consuming.

Ultimately, while FWA offers benefits in cost and flexibility, it is still a young technology, and some users will have a better experience than others, according to Kagan, but everything will improve going forward.

Future outlook of FWA

Cohen said she expects FWA to grow in the next two to five years, as consumers and businesses recognize its value. This is especially the case as providers expand services to rural areas that are ill-served by pretty much anything else, and enterprise customers see the value in the flexibility FWA delivers.

“While it needs some more infrastructure on the ground as compared to satellite communications, it has the potential for far more bandwidth capacity and far less cost for those hard to get to areas in the world,” Cohen said.

FWA technology and performance will also continue to improve as operators gain access to more spectrum, smart antennas become more sophisticated, and AI dynamically manages radio resources for optimum efficiency, Rysavy explained. Operators will be able to offer more customers ever greater performance.

At this stage, 5G FWA and private wireless appear to have a strong growth window ahead, but things can change in wireless, and they always do, Kagan said.

“It looks like, at least for the next several years, these sectors will remain on the growth track,” he said. “That does not mean growth will be smooth and flawless.”

David Weldon is a business and technology writer in the Boston area who covers topics related to data management, information security, healthcare technology, educational technology and workforce management.



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