T-Mobile’s fixed wireless access retains air of mystery

Some questions about T-Mobile’s Home Internet service remain unanswered, including the cause of a deceleration of subscribers from the third quarter to the fourth quarter of 2022. However, the analysts at MoffettNathanson took a stab at examining that and other issues related to fixed wireless access (FWA) in a new report. The report is an update of one from a year ago in which MoffetNathanson worked with Opensignal, formerly Comlinkdata, to analyze where FWA subscribers are coming from. Not a lot has changed from a year ago; Opensignal’s estimates of T-Mobile’s FWA subscriber mix show significant over-indexing in rural areas relative to the size of its footprint. “The mix changes over the past year are incredibly subtle,” wrote analyst Craig Moffett. “The overall takeaway is therefore unsurprisingly unchanged; the subscriber base skews rural but is still predominantly non-rural.” The report, which also touches on Verizon’s FWA business, noted the deceleration in T-Mobile’s net additions – it reported 578,000 net FWA adds in the third quarter and 524,000 net FWA adds in the fourth quarter of 2022 – which has come despite a significant increase in the availability of FWA. “The cause of the deceleration at T-Mobile remains unclear,” Moffett wrote. One possible explanation could be churn, and anecdotal reports of customer frustration with service consistency suggest churn rates may be relatively high, particularly in non-rural areas where high-speed wired alternatives exist, he said.