Fixed Wireless Access outlook

During the last year, FWA has grown solidly in terms of the:

• proportion of service providers offering it over 5G
• share of service providers with speed-based tariff plans
• number of connections and the traffic volume per connection

Continued global FWA momentum

An updated Ericsson study^[1] of retail packages offered by mobile service providers reveals that 79 percent have an FWA offering. There are 131 service providers offering FWA services over 5G, representing 54 percent of all FWA service providers.

Speed-based tariff plans are becoming more widely available

Speed-based tariff plans are commonly offered for fixed broadband services, such as those delivered over fiber or cable. Consumers understand this type of plan well, enabling service providers to monetize FWA as a broadband alternative. Speed-based tariff plans are now offered by 43 percent of FWA service providers, up from 30 percent a year ago. The remaining 57 percent subscribe to volume-based tariff plans (buckets of GB per month).

Regional variations

There are large regional variations in the proportion of service providers adopting FWA:

• FWA adoption is widespread globally. In four out of six regions, 83 percent or more service providers are offering FWA.
• In the past year, Western Europe experienced substantial growth in speed-based offerings and has the second-highest service provider FWA adoption globally, rising from 32 to 52 percent.
• Similar to Western Europe, the Middle East and Africa region has seen solid growth in the proportion of mobile service providers offering speed-based plans, growing from 23 to 43 percent.

FWA service provider advancements

• In the past 12 months, Europe has accounted for 73 percent of all new 5G FWA launches globally.
• Currently, 94 percent of service providers in the Gulf Cooperation Council region offer 5G FWA services.
• In the US, two service providers originally set a goal to achieve a combined 11–13 million 5G FWA connections by 2025. After reaching this target ahead of schedule, they have now revised their goal to 20–21 million connections by 2028.
• The market in India is rapidly accelerating, with 5G FWA connections reaching nearly 3 million in just over a year since launch.
• An increasing number of service providers are launching FWA based on 5G standalone (SA), driven by several key factors:
  • efficiency – improved spectrum management and coverage
  • performance – enhanced speeds, advanced features and superior user experiences
  • differentiation – introduction of premium FWA and reduced capability (RedCap) offerings

CPE choices support a speed-based strategy

FWA customer premises equipment (CPE) shipments are expected to increase by 23 percent during 2024 to reach 37 million units.^[2]

The Ericsson study, which examines 131 global mobile service providers offering 5G FWA services, provides insights into the types of CPE they offer. Among the 51 service providers with a best-effort offering, 88 percent only offer indoor CPE units, while 12 percent provide outdoor or flexi self-install CPE options (that can be placed indoors or outdoors). In contrast, for the 80 service providers with speed-based offerings, the percentage of indoor-only CPE drops to 60 percent, with a significantly higher portion, at around 40 percent, offering outdoor or self-install options.

350 million FWA connections by 2030

Global FWA connections are expected to grow from 160 million by the end of 2024 to 350 million by the end of 2030. This would represent 19 percent of all fixed broadband connections. Of the 350 million projected connections, close to 80 percent are expected to be over 5G. 4G FWA connections are predicted to peak in 2026, compared to earlier estimates of 2024.
 
Almost half of global FWA connections to be in Asia-Pacific by 2030

Higher volumes of 5G FWA in populous, high-growth countries can drive economies of scale for the overall 5G FWA ecosystem, resulting in even more affordable CPE. Asia-Pacific’s share of global FWA connections is expected to increase from 40 percent in 2024 to 48 percent by 2030.

FWA impact on global mobile network data traffic

As a result of the change in the 4G/5G FWA connection mix during the forecast period, the predicted FWA traffic up to 2030 has been slightly reduced. At the end of 2024, FWA data traffic is expected to represent 25 percent of global mobile data traffic and is projected to grow by a factor of more than 4 to reach around 170 EB per month by the end of 2030. This will represent 36 percent of total mobile network data traffic.