Mobile networks using spectrum below 6 GHz pose little threat to the fixed broadband market and will provide only a “modest upside” to operators, Jonathan Chaplin, Analyst, New Street Research, wrote in a research piece published yesterday. These networks are forecast to capture only 8 percent of the broadband market, according to Chaplin. The long-term impact of carriers, like T-Mobile and Verizon will be “slight,” he added.
According to New Street Research, Verizon and T-Mobile’s capacity will be limited in the number of subscribers they can serve and will be inadequate for most households. “When we combine supply and demand limits, we arrive at a fixed wireless broadband subscriber forecast of just 7 million in competitive markets (while expanding the market with an additional 4 million subscribers from unserved areas), compared to the 12 million primarily competitive-market subs anticipated by the companies by 2025.”
More of a threat for wireline broadband are purpose-built home broadband networks on spectrum above 6 GHz, according to Chaplin, which provides unlimited capacity and speeds of 1 Gbps. “The threat to the broadband market from this flavor of fixed wireless broadband is modest today, but only because it is being deployed to a relatively small portion of the country. The threat could grow materially if addressability is expanded,” Chaplin wrote.
This analysis favors companies such as Starry Internet, which is a fixed wireless broadband Internet service provider, using millimeter-band LMDS connections to connect its base stations to customer buildings. “The Starry model is a greater threat because, by leveraging millimeter wave spectrum, it circumvents both the supply and demand constraints faced by less-threatening fixed wireless broadband,” Chaplin wrote.
Chaplin continued: “On the supply side, there is an order of magnitude more spectrum available in millimeter wave frequencies, and limited propagation makes frequency reuse much easier.” Starry, however, is targeting only one percent of the end-user market by 2026, he added.
The observations were based on the virtual Fiber-to-the-Future Conference – Global Infrastructure held March 29 by New Street Research, which featured 32 companies presenting across 24 sessions.
By J. Sharpe Smith, Inside Towers Technology Editor
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