If you happen to live in an urban area like the city, getting internet access is pretty easy. But move out to the rural part of the country, it might be a different story. In the past, carriers like T-Mobile addressed the needs of its rural customers by offering Fixed Wireless Access (FWA), but now the carrier is seeing progress in FWA penetration in urban areas.
T-Mobile sees progress in FWA in urban areas
According to T-Mobile’s Chief Broadband Officer, Allan Samson, he claims that T-Mobile is gaining sizable traction in urban areas. Samson claims that around 70% of T-Mobile’s FWA actions come from the “top 100” cities in the US , and that 65% of sales per quarter happen in suburban and urban markets.
But why is this a big deal?
For those unfamiliar, FWA relies on cellular connectivity technologies like 5G . This means that as long as an area can receive a cellular connection, it should be able to receive FWA too. FWA is also different compared to more traditional internet like broadband or fiber, where companies need to lay the groundwork by installing cables.
This can be a huge and expensive undertaking. This is why it makes sense to carry out such works in urban areas with a more dense population. In rural areas, laying cables only to reach a handful of homes just doesn’t make financial sense. This is why FWA has typically been touted as something for rural areas, and not urban areas. However, this growing demand for FWA says otherwise.
Why the sudden shift?
Like we said, in the past, FWA was usually seen as the solution to bringing the internet to rural parts of the country. However, thanks to the arrival of 5G, the speeds of FWA have greatly improved. In the past, FWA would rely on older technologies like 4G. While 4G was fast in its own right, it wasn’t as fast compared to traditional internet.
But with 5G, internet speeds are faster, which makes FWA more desirable. Also, while most internet service providers have probably laid the groundwork for most areas, there are some places that might not be covered, like new developments, for example. This means that customers who don’t want to wait can turn to FWA.
That being said, we don’t see FWA completely replacing traditional internet. For one, there is the issue of stability. Traditional internet tends to be more stable, whereas FWA could see drops in speed or connectivity if there’s interference. Perhaps that might change when 6G rolls around, but we’ll have to wait and see.
