Investing in FWA or buying FTTP wholesale: a comparison for mobile network operators

This report asks whether challenger fixed-wireless access (FWA) is economically sustainable in the long term. It contrasts the internal cost to a mobile network operator (MNO) of expanding capacity to the costs of wholebuying.¹

In addition to providing recommendations for MNOs, the report provides recommendations for how fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) network owners can bridge the gap between MNOs’ wholebuy requirements and their own wholesale offerings.

Questions answered in this report

• What are the limits of the fallow capacity approach to 5G FWA?
• What are the relative costs per premises passed of capacity enhancements to FWA, and how can these best be calculated?
• How does the monthly TCO of self-supplying various forms of FWA stack up against wholesale FTTP rates?
• How might wholesale FTTP plays best address the opportunities that arise from migrating FWA customers off mobile networks?

Who should read this report

• Telecoms operator network strategy teams
• Mobile RAN equipment vendors 
• FWA customer premises equipment (CPE) vendors 
• Fixed access vendors

¹ Throughout this report we use the terms ‘wholebuy’ and ‘wholebuyer’ instead of ‘buy wholesale’ and ‘purchaser of wholesale services’.