Rural favorite LTE fixed wireless broadband — soon-to-be 5G —is forecast to grow 26% through 2022.
The global fixed wireless broadband market will grow 30% in 2018 and generate US$18 billion in service revenue, forecasts market analyst firm ABI Research. By 2022, worldwide fixed wireless broadband market will generate $45.2 billion thanks to an estimated compound annual growth rate of 26%.
Fixed wireless broadband delivers broadband via radio signals rather than cables. The system uses wireless radio technology on mobile networks deliver broadband internet to customers, who have an outdoor antenna receiver mounted to the building and a WiFi gateway inside. The connection is line of sight between customer and a ground station. “The cost per Mbps of bandwidth is tends to be higher from other forms of broadband,” says the website Lifewire.
Often fixed broadband options — DSL, cable or fiber alternatives — are limited in rural areas, explains device manufacturer Ericisson in a blog. “Fixed wireless access (FWA) provides a bridge to those potential customers.”
As RCR Wireless reported in March, lots of small, rural carriers are working to extend reliable broadband in challenging economic and geographical settings.
For now, LTE is the most widely used technology to provide fixed wireless broadband service across the world, reports ABI Research. Verizon will launch its 5G fixed wireless in California this year and expects 30 million customers to be reached by that first deployment. AT&T and Charter are carrying out 5G fixed wireless broadband tests in select U.S. markets. Orange, Elisa, and telecom infrastructure company Arqiva are performing 5G fixed wireless trials in Europe. In APAC, Australia’s Optus is planning for 5G fixed wireless service launch in 2019, , according to ABI Research.
“5G fixed broadband access is expected to enable robust services with a reliable capacity to meet the need of residential broadband users,” says ABI Research Industry Analyst Khin Sandi Lynn in a statement. ““5G technology can support a theoretical speed up to 20 Gbps with latency 1 ms, enabling operators to provide superior broadband access without installing fiber-optic cables to every single household,”
These findings are from ABI Research’s LTE and 5G Fixed Broadband Markets report, which lists 43 operators providing fixed wireless broadband access including AT&T, Bell, Orange, Telefonica, Verizon, etc. and customer premises equipment (CPE) vendors including ARRIS, Huawei, Netgear, Sagemcom, Technicolor, ZyXel, ZTE, among others.
The post Fixed wireless broadband to grow 30% in 2018 appeared first on RCR Wireless News.