Fixed wireless access (FWA) residential broadband services as well as cable wireless mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) services are the faces of cross-platform competition in today's communications marketplace. Second quarter results for 2024 show continued growth of these services.
On July 31, T-Mobile announced that it added 406,000 FWA subscribers during the second quarter of 2024, upping its overall FWA subscriber total to 5.6 million. On July 22, Verizon announced that it added 378,000 FWA subscribers for a total of 3.8 million. On July 24 AT&T announced that it added 139,000 subscribers to its AT&T Internet Air service, reportedly growing its total FWA subscriber count to about 350,000.
News articles – including this June 6 LightReading article, "FWA in the USA: Getting ready for Phase 2," which helpfully summarizes different analyst takes on the future of the service – indicate that FWA continues to pose a particularly strong competitive challenge to cable broadband services.
However, cable broadband providers continue attracting new subscribers to their MVNO wireless service offerings. According to a July 26 announcement by Charter Communications, its Spectrum Mobile service added 557,000 subscribers during the second quarter of 2024. At the quarter's end, Spectrum Mobile had 8.8 million subscribers. Additionally, Comcast announced on July 23 that it had gained 322,000 subscribers to Xfinity Mobile during the second quarter, increasing its subscriber total to 7.2 million.
As I wrote in a blog post on May 3 of this year, "[t]he proper response by the FCC to the growth of FWA and cable MVNO in the communications market should be to emphasize market competition as a safeguard to consumer welfare rather than stringent government regulation." At that time, I observed that the Commission chose the wrong response on April 25 by re-imposing Title II public utility regulation on wireline and wireless broadband Internet Access services. However, the Sixth Circuit issued an order imposing a stay on the FCC's Safeguarding and Securing the Open Internet that keeps the regulation from going into effect while the legal challenge before the court proceeds to the merits. Free State Foundation President Randolph May responded to the court's stay order in an August 2 press release titled "The FCC Should Turn to Productive Endeavors."
One productive endeavor that the Commission should be pursuing is increased spectrum availability for commercial use. As FSF President May and I wrote in FSF’s July 2024 public comments to the FCC for its forthcoming Communications Marketplace Competition Report:
To further promote competition, innovation, and investment in the broadband marketplace, the Commission should work proactively to make more spectrum available for commercial use and by removing regulatory barriers to broadband deployment… There is particularly strong demand for additional mid-band spectrum. The Commission ought to prioritize the lower 3.1-3.45 GHz band for study and prompt repurposing… Although proposals for repurposing different bands are at different stages of development and each faces unique challenges, the Commission should advance every proposal for spectrum that may realistically be suitable for commercial uses – whether on a licensed or unlicensed basis. A larger spectrum supply will enable more competitors to serve more Americans with next-gen services.
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