ABI Research has already begun seeing momentum for FWA gathering globally. Mobile operators see FWA as a growth opportunity that can use excess network capacity, especially as more spectrum bands like Millimeter Wave (mmWave) (26/28 GHz) and C-band (~3.5 GHz) come into play. It is also prudent to note that 5G capacities would be able to meet the gigabit average data traffic per user per month Download or Upload (DOU) requirements of home broadband users, especially during the hours after 6 p.m. when mobile data traffic is lower and fixed broadband traffic is higher.
The 5G FWA value proposition for mobile operators is good news for their business. Mobile operators can stand to create new pricing packages based on different factors, such as data rates and data volumes, for different use cases, such as cloud gaming and Augmented Reality (AR) or Virtual Reality (VR), and offer new services, such as a 5G FWA private line that competes with fixed broadband. In fact, Rain and Huawei have begun successfully deploying 5G FWA solutions in South Africa to compete with the fiber market in dense urbanized areas, and have demonstrated that the average throughput for these areas using 5G FWA was almost twice that of using fiber, proving how 5G FWA is technologically- and business-ready to compete against fiber.
