- Major U.S. wireless operators have enough capacity to support 32M fixed wireless customers, according to New Street
- AT&T has the most room to grow as it has only started leaning more into FWA
- But overall, FWA net adds are expected to slow down in 2026
The big U.S. wireless operators now have the capacity to serve up to 32 million fixed wireless access (FWA) subscribers, according to New Street Research – roughly double the firm’s assessment in June 2024.
That’s no shocker given the spectrum carriers gained through acquisition, from AT&T’s $23 billion purchase of EchoStar spectrum to T-Mobile scooping up USCellular and Verizon’s recent Starry buy.
The 32 million count includes 20.6 million consumer FWA subs and 11.8 million business customers, but New Street noted that it doesn’t account for any potential additional capacity from the future upper C-Band auction, which the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) must hold by July 4, 2027.
The auction could yield operators another 4 million FWA customers, the firm estimated, bringing their total capacity to approximately 36 million. Until that happens though, they’re milking whatever spectrum they have.
T-Mobile for instance “is close to two-thirds of their addressable capacity,” New Street analysts wrote. “We would not be surprised if new CEO Srini Gopalan announces a FWA target increase.”
The company’s long-term FWA target is 12 million customers by 2028, but it’s also eyeing room to grow in urban markets. T-Mobile Chief Broadband Officer Allan Samson has said about 70% of new FWA customers come from the “top 100” U.S. cities.
Meanwhile, Verizon is aiming for 8-9 million FWA customers by 2028, and it has used up about half of its capacity, said New Street. But it’s AT&T that has the most room to run among the big 3, and it just started leaning into FWA “and has only captured a sixth of their estimated capacity so far.”
As for FWA gear, increased purchases have been a bright spot for the broadband equipment market. A new Dell’Oro report found that while total global revenue for broadband access gear dropped 5% year-on-year to $4.5 billion, operators continue to rack up purchases for FWA customer premise equipment.
“Though 5G Sub-6 GHz units lead today, we are seeing increasing shipments of mmWave (millimeter wave) units in select markets,” stated Dell’Oro Group VP Jeff Heynen.
Verizon has particularly doubled down on U.S. mmWave deployments, as it looks to further increase coverage with the Starry footprint.
FWA frenzy won’t last forever
Despite all the activity around spectrum and FWA, New Street expects FWA adds to taper off starting in 2026.
It’s already happening to Verizon, which saw its total FWA net adds decrease from 1.5 million in 2024 to 1.1 million in 2025. However, T-Mobile’s net adds jumped slightly year-on-year from 1.7 to 1.8 million, and AT&T’s increased from 0.5 million to 0.9 million in that same period.
“We expect adds at T-Mobile and Verizon to continue to slow from here and adds at AT&T to remain steady in 2026,” New Street analysts wrote. “Put together, we estimate a slight slowdown in net adds in 2026.”
The good news is an FWA slowdown presents a recovery path for the fixed broadband operators that have grappled with FWA competition. New Street anticipates fixed adds will be “only slightly negative” in 2026 and turn positive in 2027.
Unfortunately for the cable companies, that forecast doesn’t apply to them. “While we expect cable losses to improve over time, we never have cable adds in aggregate turning positive,” said the analysts, who don’t expect cable net adds to grow before 2030.