Ericsson also forecasts that the number of global FWA connections will reach over 300 million by 2028
The total number of Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) connections is forecast to reach over 100 million by the end of 2022, according to the latest edition of Ericsson Mobility Report.
This number is projected to triple by 2028, reaching over 300 million. This figure represents 17% of fixed broadband connections.
“Of these over 300 million connections, the number of 5G FWA connections is expected to grow to around 235 million by 2028, representing almost 80% of the total FWA connections. The forecast has been adjusted to include the high ambitions of 5G FWA in emerging markets, increasing the number of connections as well as the share of 5G FWA connections,” Ericsson said.
“Higher volumes of 5G FWA in large high-growth countries such as India have the potential to drive economies of scale for the overall 5G FWA ecosystem, resulting in affordable CPE that will have a positive impact across low-income markets,” the Swedish vendor added.
Ericsson also noted that a study of retail packages offered by service providers shows that, out of 310 service providers studied worldwide, 238 (or 77%) had an FWA offering. During the last 12 months, the number of service providers offering 5G FWA services has increased from 57 (19%) to 88 (29%).
“In addition, following the 5G spectrum auction in India in July, a major service provider has expressed a goal to serve 100 million homes and millions of businesses with 5G FWA services.”
The study also revealed that almost 40% of the new 5G FWA launches in the past 12 months have been in emerging markets. Ericsson noted that 5G FWA technology has recently arrived in populous countries such as Mexico, South Africa, Nigeria and the Philippines.
IoT connections
The Ericsson Mobility Report also highlighted that a total of 124 service providers have already deployed or commercially launched NB-IoT networks and 57 have launched Cat-M, while 56 have deployed both technologies.
The number of devices connected by these technologies experienced a strong growth in 2021 and is expected to reach almost 500 million by the end of this year, according to the report.
“In 2021, broadband IoT (4G/5G) reached 1 billion connections, overtaking 2G and 3G as the technology that connects the largest share of all cellular IoT devices. This segment mainly includes wide-area use cases that require higher throughput, lower latency and larger data volumes than can be supported by Massive IoT devices. LTE Cat-1 devices, which support 10 Mbps downlink and 5 Mbps uplink speeds are increasingly being used for a variety of use cases,” Ericson said.
The study also stated that North East Asia is the leading region in terms of the number of cellular IoT connections, expected to pass 2 billion connections in 2023.
