Rise of remote working drives FWA adoption

Remote working is set to drive demand for high-capacity residential broadband, with fixed wireless access set to be the fastest-growing residential broadband segment, according to a study from ABI Research.

The report from ABI found that FWA will see a compound annual growth rate of 71% to exceed 58 million subscribers worldwide by 2026.

The Pay TV and residential broadband subscriptions market data report claims the worldwide residential broadband market reached a subscriber’s base of over 1.1 billion in 2020, up 4% from the previous year. Key applications such as remote working, online learning, e-commerce, and virtual healthcare drove high-speed broadband demand throughout the year.

The increase in demand has led telecoms providers to invest in higher capacity networks, expand fibre deployments, and leverage 5G to offer FWA as an alternative solution.

“Increasing adoption of internet-connected devices, smart TVs and smart home devices, as well as consumers’ media consumption through internet applications, will continue to drive high-speed broadband adoption in the years to come,” said Khin Sandi Lynn, industry analyst at ABI Research. “In addition, many businesses are allowing remote working for some of their employees after the pandemic, which will boost the need for home broadband services even further.”

5G FWA services are expected to represent 4% of residential broadband services in 2026, growing from less than 1% in 2020.

ABI predicted that as residential broadband penetration saturated mature markets, competition among broadband operators was likely to create challenges to maintain market shares.

“In addition to network upgrades, broadband operators need to invest in cutting-edge software and hardware to optimise network performance and support better user experiences. Providing advanced home networking devices, internet security, and home network self-diagnosis tools can help service providers reduce churn and improve average revenue per user,” added Lynn.