​FWA or Fixed Wireless Access has been promoted as a viable way for areas that have little or no access to copper, coax, or fiber services, but this stepchild of hard-wired connectivity is beginning to come out of its shell and is now being examined, deployed, and promoted as not just a fix for areas where wired service is poor or non-existent, but as a stand-alone service that can replace those hard-wired services.  Both 4G (LTE) and 5G are part of those offerings, and both residential and commercial customers are now being pursued by operators that are promoting FWA as the main connection point to a home or business, rather than an alternative to other broadband technologies or to none at all.
According to GSA there are over 460 operators globally that are investing in, acquiring licenses, developing pilot projects, or deploying FWA services, with 436 operators in 171 countries offering FWA services, or over half of all operators with commercial 4G or 5G networks.  To be realistic, most (429 in 169 countries) are offering FWA using LTE (4G), however 63 operators are also offering 5G FWA, up from 44 at the end of last year.  Europe has the most 5G FWA offerings (and also the most LTE FWA, with Eastern Europe alone having 41 4G/5G operators that are offering FWA, which is the same number as  all of North America, and when adding all four regions of Europe, the total is 134 operators, while Asia (all regions) sees only 54 FWA operators, a surprisingly low number.
One area where things get a bit hazy for FWA however is service cost.  Most FWA service plans are based on volume, for both 4G and 5G, but more recently, services based on speed have been gaining some momentum., although this is more common with 5G services, increasing at ~ 30% over the last six months according to GSA, but many offer ‘unlimited’ usage to attract customers.  Unfortunately many of these service plans do contain limitations, usually by limiting speed after a volume threshold is reached, but there are still 92 operators offering truly unlimited 4G services and 18 offering 5G services with no caps or limitations, although not surprisingly the number of 5G unlimited plans has decreased over the last six months while the number of unlimited 4G plans has increased.
Another hazy area for FWA is speed.  As noted there are both 4G and 5G FWA networks, with inherently different speeds, but there is little clarity when it comes to what actual FWA network performance will look like to the end user.  Given the number of factors that might come into play concerning parameters that might affect overall network speed for both 4G and 5G, there is a bit of leeway here, but just for 4G FWA operators have promoted network speeds of anywhere from 2 Mbs to over 1.7 Gbs, while tests have indicated that the average 4G FWA network operated at a download speed of 96 Mbs, up slightly from 93 Mbs six months ago.  5G quotations from operators range from 20 Mbs to 4.3 Gbs, although about half are promoting download speeds of 250 Mbs to 1.5 Gbs, with the average tested speed being 658 Mbs, up from 604 Mbs six months ago, but to the credit of operators, the average network speeds promoted this year are down from last year, not the speed itself, but the range, which means the operators are getting more realistic in their FWA service promotions.
One last area of question about FWA services is installation.  Outdoor antennae and equipment can be mounted on a roof or on a wall, while indoor CPE equipment can be located in the specific customer location, wherever the signal is the strongest (usually a window).  Outdoor installations usually need an engineer to set up antenna and CPE equipment, while indoor installs are usually done by the customer, lowering the cost and time associated with the installation considerably, and while customers are likely to choose the lower cost option, operators also offer far more indoor FWA CPE options, now about 2 to 1 overall, and 1.5 to 1 for 5G, which is more sensitive to source direction of blockage, as the outdoor option needs more company support.
All in, FWA is becoming a real service that can compete with hard-wired services in many locations.  With both 4G and 5G FWA CPE equipment available 56 sources, up from 31 last November, and 9 in November 2019, there is a rapidly developing ecosystem for FWA as a way to distribute high speed broadband across a commercial enterprise of a residential home., and as 5G, both mid-band and mmWave deployment continue, we expect FWA will become a more common service plan for those looking to enhance their network connectivity.   While there are a few ‘hazy’ spots in the deployment of FWA, broadband has never been without same, and with the level of completion already seen between operators and equipment vendors for 5G, we expect FWA will make meaningful gains this year and more so in 2022 as more spectrum is released on a global basis.  Names like Insego (INSG), MeiG (002881.CH), and Casa Systems (CASA) will get some of the press that more well-known FWA CPE suppliers like Huawei (pvt) and ZTE (000063.CH) might normally get.

5G gets a lot of press.  If we are not hearing about new 5G smartphones, we are certainly bombarded with maps and statistics about how this carrier or that carrier has the best  5G network, but the question remains, where are we with 5G on a global basis, and where will we be in 5 years?  While the average guy/gal in the street probably still does not care about 5G, as they probably have a Samsung (005930.KS) Galaxy S8 (released 4/21/2017) or an Apple (AAPL) iPhone 7 (released 9/12/16 here in the US, or a Huawei (pvt) Mate 20 Pro (released 10/16/2017) in China, but they will over the next few years when they finally get frustrated with apps that run slow, dropped connections, battery deterioration, or they are just embarrassed to be using a phone that is almost 5 years old.  So the question remains, where are we now and where will we be with 5G in five years?
Ericsson (ERIC) puts out a summary of facts and figures concerning 5G and broadband generally each year and while it certainly has an optimistic point of view, not surprisingly so give Ericsson is among the top five 5G equipment vendors, but it does have extensive 5G data and some forecasts as to where the company expects 5G to be in a number of years, some of which we summarize here:
5G subscriptions have been growing at a very high rate, although we note that prior to 2019 there was no real 5G service available so 2020 growth is going to reflect the first and second real year for 5G subscriptions, and for most areas, just the beginning of real deployment.  On a global basis, worldwide mobile subscriptions in 2019 were 7.93b, increasing by only 0.25% in 2020 to 7.95b, but are expected to grow by 10.4% during the period between 2020 and 2026 to 8.778b at a 2% CAGR.  Here’s how it breaks down by region, including China and the Gulf Cooperative Council, which consists of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar. Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.  China and the GCC are also broken out separately:

Looking at subscription data by technology shows how each technology fares in terms of subscription growth over the same 2020 – 2026 time period.  As we are using rounded figures for calculating absolute growth and CAGR, our numbers differ slightly from those in the report, however the only significant difference of note is with 5G, where we calculate a 72.9% CAGR on rounded numbers and Ericsson calculates a 59% CAGR on rounded numbers.  We note that while 2G and more recently 3G networks are being eliminated in the US, together they still represented 38.4% of subscriptions globally last year, and even in 2026 are still expected to represent 15% of global subscriptions, so while the technology might not be visible here in 2026, it will still be part of the global network.
5G itself is expected to grow faster than 4G, reaching 1b subscriptions roughly two years earlier than 4G, which began its rollout in 2009, although it will not see a greater share of global subscriptions than 4G (LTE) until 2027 or 2028.  That said, even using Ericsson’s 59% CAGR through 2026, 5G will see very substantial growth in subscriptions.  Breaking down the 5G subscription growth by region, while Latin America will see the most rapid subscription growth during the period, North East Asia, primarily China will see it share decline from 88.0% in 2020 to 40.6% by 2026.  The 5G subscription share in 2020 and 2026 are depicted in Fig.1 and Fig. 2 below.

As has been the case since March, all three of the primary 5G Ecosystem metrics we track have been on the rise, with the total number of 5G devices remaining substantially above the trend line.  Available 5G smartphones increased by 7.5% m/m and 240.6% y/y while the number of available CPE devices, an indicator of potential demand for 5G in-home or business usage, grew 6.7% m/m and is up 71.4% y/y, and the number of combined 5G devices reached over 800 for the first time.  The m/m growth of available 5G devices is settling down to a range between 4% and 14%, a less volatile range than last year’s -1% to +40% range.  We expect this stability to remain and potentially narrow, although we expect new smartphone releases toward the holidays might skew the averages a bit, including the release of the next iPhone series.
All in 5G continues to grow at an increasing rate, we see more mid to low price tier phones equipped with 5G.  A look at phones currently available (2021 releases), 5G availability breaks down as follows, with over 50% of smartphones released this year in the $200 - $300 range equipped with 5G modems and 46.9% of all smartphones released this year inclusive of 5G.  We expect that share to rise further this year as the bulk of the smartphones to be released in 2H will be in the higher price tiers: