Some idea of the potential for fixed network internet access mobile substitution can be gauged by T-Mobile US filings with the Federal Communications Commission in support of its merger with Sprint.
T-Mobile estimates that 19 percent of U.S. households could satisfy their needs for at-home internet access using tethering. By 2024, New T-Mobile would be able to meet the needs of perhaps 35 percent to 40 percent of U.S. households using tethering. Perhaps a quarter of those households would be in rural areas, T-Mobile US estimates.
The company believes it could capture 9.5 million accounts in that manner, by 2024.
Assume there are 97 million fixed network internet access accounts in service in 2018. Assume there are about the same number in 2024. T-Mobile US might then have captured about 10 percent of the market. By then, Verizon should also have acquired some share of the fixed network market itself, using fixed wireless.
By 2024, Verizon might have gotten five to six million fixed wireless accounts. Between them, Verizon and new T-Mobile US might have shifted about 15 percent market share of fixed network internet access away from other incumbent service providers.
Of course, if T-Mobile US is able to use tethering to create a substitute for fixed network access, then it seems possible that AT&T and Verizon also could do so. In fact, AT&T seems to be positioning for just that possibility in Indianapolis, where mobile substitution might be the immediate counter to Verizon’s fixed wireless offers.
Note that T-Mobile US does not propose to use a “fixed wireless” approach, but relies fully on the mobile network, with its faster speeds, to displace a cabled network connection.
If T-Mobile US and Sprint are allowed to merge, the “merged entity intends to enter the in-home broadband marketplace with an attractive alternative to wired broadband at a lower price,” T-Mobile US said in a filing with the Federal Communications Commission.
That does not necessarily mean T-Mobile would do so using 5G fixed wireless, though. Instead, T-Mobile seems to envision a radically-expanded program of supporting tethering.
New T-Mobile says it expects to offer a substitute for fixed network internet access at lower prices than are offered today in over half of U.S. zip codes, the company said in a filing to the Federal Communications Commission by DLA Piper.
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