T-Mobile has added four more states to its fixed wireless Home Internet service. The “Un-Carrier” now boasts 51 new cities added across Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina totaling 600 locations across the US.
T-Mobile has not kept its fixed wireless ambitions a secret and has set its sights on two specific opportunities. The first is the underserved market and the second in areas where people only have one option for high-speed internet from a wireline provider. The new expansion of its fixed wireless network seems to be targeting both of these opportunities to challenge cable and telcos. T-Mobile announced in a news release that across the four states aforementioned that 1 million people don’t have access to any wired ISP and that 3.3 million people only have one option for an ISP.
“Today, thousands more households now have access to fast, unlimited high-speed internet. We’re expanding access in places that have never had a real choice when it comes to home broadband, where people are fed up with cable and telco ISPs,” said Dow Draper, EVP of Emerging Products at T-Mobile, in a statement. “We’re able to continue to expand access to this service because of the massive investments we’ve made in our 5G network. That’s the real power of 5G.”
T-Mobile’s push for fixed wireless services began with 4G LTE pilots earlier in 2021 but rolled out 5G when commercially launched the service. The carrier’s Home Internet product doesn’t have a 5G moniker, but 5G will be available in the named locations, including 19 in Florida, 14 in Georgia, 11 in North Carolina, and seven in South Carolina.
For a limited time, customers can get $10 off the regular $60/month on the home internet service. Click here to see if T-Mobile’s Home Internet service is available to you.
In a report released in August by Mobile Experts, analysts noted a rise in FWA services due in part because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The report said that FWA surged nearly 20% yearly to 80+ million connections in 2020, with anticipated figures around 200+ million by 2026. Mobile Experts’ principal analyst Kyung Mun recently told FierceWireless that he’s seeing operators leverage fixed wireless and utilize mobile network capacity, with it trending more in markets outside of the US. Still, US carriers are growing their network capacity with mid-band spectrum.
AT&T and Verizon are looking to launch mid-band C-band later in 2021, whereas T-Mobile has mid-band 2.5 GHz.
Mun said, “We believe that operators will definitely take advantage of the increased capacity on the fixed wireless side in some regions, not everywhere, but larger operators will definitely focus their 5G network investment on mobile first.”
T-Mobile’s goal is to provide 7-8 million homes with FWA by 2026, and Verizon is looking to reach 15 million homes with fixed wireless by the end of 2021 and 30 million by 2023.
Source: FierceWireless