T-Mo, Verizon are gaining cable, DSL customers
Fixed Wireless Access services offered by telecom carriers are succeeding in winning customers away from cable and DSL service providers, according to new analysis from Ookla, but competition in the space is expected to ramp up in the coming year as AT&T expands its new AT&T Internet Air FWA offering.
Ookla said that according to its Speedtest data, both T-Mobile US and Verizon have maintained their service performance levels over the past year even as they have brought on significant numbers of new customers.
The chart below follows the customer growth of T-Mobile US and Verizon’s FWA offerings.
Ookla found that in general, the speeds offered by Verizon and T-Mobile US’ FWA service lags behind those of major cable and fiber ISPs. For comparison, Ookla said that the median download speed across the U.S. (for all fixed providers combined) in the third quarter of 2023 was 207.42 Mbps.
However, for customers of major U.S. ISPs who switched to T-Mo’s FWA service, Ookla found that their pre-switch median download speed was below the median performance for all customers across those ISPs. So presumably, getting better internet speeds was part of the rationale for the switch.
“The FWA value proposition is clearly resonating most with existing cable and DSL customers, which make up the vast bulk of churners to both T-Mobile’s and Verizon’s FWA services,” Ookla said. However, there’s an interesting head-to-head battle shaping up in some rural areas, where Ookla said that more than 10% of users joining Verizon’s FWA service are coming from T-Mobile.
Even as they have seen strong customer growth, the telcos are also maintaining their performance levels. T-Mobile US remained very steady: In the fourth quarter of 2022, Ookla recorded the median download speed for its FWA service at 119.89 Mbps, and the service has improved just slightly since then, to 122.48 Mbps as of the third quarter of 2023.
Meanwhile, Verizon’s FWA download speeds have fluctuated a bit more. Ookla pegged Verizon’s median FWA download speed as 94.77 Mbps in the fourth quarter of 2022, then it rose to around 120 Mbps in the first quarter of 2023 before dipping to 108 Mbps and rising again to tie with T-Mo at the 122 Mbps-mark.
Additional C-Band spectrum deployments will further strengthen the performance of FWA offerings, Ookla anticipates, and AT&T’s FWA service will drive “further competitive pressure” for FWA next year.
