5G Factor: 5G FWA Gaining

An Assessment of Key Developments Across the 5G-IoT Ecosystem Including T-Mobile Verizon Spur FWA, New Nokia FastMile Products, and Ericsson FWA Tariff Views  In this episode of The 5G Factor, our series that focuses on all things 5G, the IoT, and the ecosystem as a whole, I’m joined by my colleague and fellow analyst, Todd R Weiss, for a look at the top 5G developments and what’s going on that caught our eye including the latest on the T-Mobile Verizon US 5G FWA horse race, Nokia introduces new FastMile products to address FWA scaling challenges, and Ericsson provides recommendations on 5G FWA plans.  Our conversation focused on: US 5G FWA Horse Race Heats Up. T-Mobile is the fastest-growing internet provider in the U.S., a trend that started almost two years ago. Both T-Mobile and Verizon have managed to make FWA-based home internet service an easy installation, and the bundle proposition is vital because most of these subscribers have the service bundled with their mobile cellular offering. Combined, T-Mobile and Verizon added about 940,000 FWA/5G home internet subscribers in Q3 2023. We delve into why both mobile operators are making deep strides with their FWA service offerings and why FWA is altering the overall broadband services competitive landscape. Nokia FastMile Addresses 5G FWA Scaling Challenges. According to GSMA Intelligence, over 90 fixed broadband service providers across 48 countries have already launched 5G FWA services. However, as FWA service uptake begins to top 15%, user experience can diminish across the board, given that existing mobile users and FWA subscribers are competing for the same limited resources. To solve this capacity challenge and boost 5G FWA deployments, Nokia has introduced next generation 5G fixed wireless broadband devices to its FastMile product portfolio. Latest in this portfolio is the Nokia FastMile 5G Receiver (5G26-A) and the Nokia FastMile 5G Gateway 7. We review the Nokia’s FastMile portfolio and why we see it meeting the challenges of scaling FWA including addressing digital divide concerns.  Ericsson FWA Tariff Recommendations. According to the latest Ericsson Mobility Report June 2023, over one-quarter of FWA service providers now offer speed-based tariff plans (also referred to as quality of service, or QoS). The remaining three-quarters are still best-effort, with volume-based tariff plans (buckets of GB per month). Ericsson is recommending the adoption of speed-based tariffs, emphasizing the appeal of presenting 'up-to' speed values in contracts. We examine why this approach allies with subscribers being more drawn to plans that clearly define potential speeds, aligning with consumer expectations and building trust. We discuss the prospects for the LLM intended to help telcos worldwide, including in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, to develop GenAI services, such as “AI agents”, flexibly and according to their respective environment.