Will Fixed Wireless Have 9% of the Home Broadband Installed Base by 2026?

Fixed wireless will hold nine percent share of the installed base of U.S. home broadband accounts by 2026, GlobalData projects. 

With a current base of 1.95 million fixed wireless connections,GlobalData forecasts fixed wireless accounts will grow to 10.43 million in 2026, representing nearly nine percent of total U.S. broadband access lines.

That might seem so significant. But keep in mind that satellite services constitute about one percent of U.S. broadband installed base. Also consider that six percent of U.S. households are “wireless-only” for home broadband, and the great bulk of that is mobile network access. 

Of the more than seven million wireless-only accounts, if fixed wireless accounts for 1.95 million accounts, then mobile represents five percent of those accounts. 

source: S&P Global Market Intelligence 

Equally important are the market share and installed base possibilities for home broadband providers. If the typical U.S. home broadband account generates $600 a year in revenue, then 10.43 million lines represents $6.26 billion in annual service revenues. 

And since most of that revenue is earned in a near zero-sum market, a gain of $1 billion by any provider also corresponds to losses by another provider of about the same amount. 

For a firm such as T-Mobile, with zero market share, that is a significant opportunity. For a firm such as Verizon, whose fixed network passes only about 18 million homes passed by its Fios home broadband network. But Verizon expects to pass as many as 50 million homes using fixed wireless by about 2025. 

Veizon has perhaps seven million (closer to 6.7 million, likely)  Fios home broadband accounts, generating about $1814 to $1895 annual revenue per account, including voice and other services such as subscription television, on annual revenues of about $12.7 billion. 

So fixed wireless revenue per account would seem to be far lower than a Fios account.  

But fixed wireless already represents at least 41 percent of Verizon home broadband passings and will eventually be the dominant home broadband capability possessed by Verizon. By 2025 fixed wireless could represent 70 percent of the locations where Verizon can sell home broadband. 

So even if fixed wireless remains a single-digit percentage of the home broadband installed base, it still represents a primary way some providers will try to take market share from other providers. 

T-Mobile and Verizon are the biggest of possible winners. Cable TV home broadband providers stand to lose the most, simply because they have 70 percent of the installed base.