Has fixed wireless finally found its success story?

Wireless internet service providers (WISPs) have long offered fixed wireless broadband services in rural areas where cable or wireline broadband is lacking. But now fixed wireless is seeing a bit of a revival in some urban markets thanks to Verizon’s 5G Home service and newcomer Starry’s fixed wireless 802.11-based service. But not everyone is convinced that these new attempts at delivering fixed wireless broadband will be a success.

According to Lynnette Luna, principal analyst with GlobalData, Verizon needs to provide some clarity on its strategy. “They don’t want to deploy it in places with a lot of broadband competition so they look for markets where they have an advantage but I don’t understand their formula,” she said. However, she added that she thinks it’s smart for Verizon to bundle the service with other things. Luna also believes because Starry is focusing just on multi-dwelling units, its market is very niche. “They have demonstrated that it can be a business but it’s not competitive with Comcast.” Roger Entner, founder of Recon Analytics, is also skeptical about Starry. “100,000 customers by year-end is a sad statement,” he said. “They should be getting multiples of that every quarter.” Entner added that fixed wireless is a business that requires economies of scale to work. “Connectivity is a high fixed cost,” he said. “You need scale and they aren’t getting to scale.”