WASHINGTON, August 14, 2025 – The growth of fixed wireless access internet isn’t slowing down anytime soon.
According to Doug Dawson, President of CCG Consulting, despite industry predictions that fixed wireless access (FWA) was a “flash in the pan,” adoption of the technology continues to grow. Dawson noted that the three largest FWA providers: AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, have added between 913,000-959,000 net additions every quarter to their FWA services since Q2 2024, even while cable subscriptions have declined.
“FWA cellular will eventually plateau, but it doesn’t look like we are close to that day yet,” Dawson wrote Tuesday. “The industry segment is far from running out of gas.”
Dawson noted that Congress’s decision to give the Federal Communications Commission the authority to auction off as much as 800 megahertz of spectrum for 5G was a huge windfall for the industry. Despite cell towers not being originally designed for home internet use, the industry has adapted.
“The cable companies and telcos were not wrong when they said that cell towers weren’t originally designed to do home broadband, but with over 13.4 million FWA customers, it’s clear that the cell carriers have figured out a way to make it work,” he wrote.
“The one glaring weakness of FWA is that carriers will still cut FWA speeds to near zero any time that a cell site gets too busy – carriers are going to continue to prioritize cell customers over FWA customers. But the carriers are considering dedicating spectrum just for FWA, which would eliminate this issue. That will be a lot easier to do after more spectrum comes onto the market.”
Not everything is on the upswing for FWA. Recently imposed tariffs may hit the industry harder than fiber providers. Additionally, despite changes to the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program that many viewed as favorable to the technology, it has struggled to make inroads, mostly due to stiff competition from satellite providers.