- cNPS captures factors that drive a consumer’s purchase decisions
- Cable operators are striving to improve their cNPS, finding some success
- Meanwhile, fixed wireless is seeing cNPS declines
Cable’s customer net promoter scores (cNPS) improved during the second quarter 2026, while the same cannot be said for fixed wireless access (FWA), which continues to see declining cNPS, according to data from Recon Analytics and analysis from New Street Research.
NPS measures how likely customers are to recommend a company, product or service to others. New Street said cNPS captures all the factors that drive a consumer’s purchase and churn decisions.
Cable executives have admitted frequently on earnings calls that their reputations with customers are pretty dismal, and they’re working hard to earn back customer good will.
Their efforts seem to be working.
According to New Street Research led by analyst David Barden, cable cNPS climbed from -7 in Q1 2023 to 3 in Q2 2026. “The path has not been smooth: the score peaked in 3Q24, gave most of it back, then spent six quarters range bound between 0 and 1 before this quarter's move,” wrote Barden. “It still remains barely positive and a long way behind fiber.”
The scores of all major cable operators improved in Q2 with the biggest improvement seen in Optimum’s scores followed by Comcast’s.
The key question is whether second quarter 2026 marks a genuine turn for cable or just an anomaly.
Not only did cable’s cNPS improve in the latest reported quarter, but it also improved on every driver, including price, installation and support.
Barden wrote that an increase in cNPS is a good sign, but “to be clear, share gains take time, and we aren’t going to change our subscriber estimates on one quarter’s worth of improved cNPS.”
FWA drifts downward
Meanwhile, FWA net promoter scores are on a downward trajectory.
T-Mobile FWA held its advantage against Verizon FWA, but both are far from their 2024 peaks.
In addition, FWA saw almost every driver fall during Q2 2026, except for price/value, which edged up marginally in the quarter. The levels are still high though, with installation at 35 and billing at 34, numbers near the top of the industry. But the scores have been moving in the negative direction for a year. Capacity and the withdrawal of introductory pricing are the obvious explanations, said New Street.
And there might be a correlation between cNPS and subscriber trends.
According to MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett, FWA net additions were down slightly YoY in Q2 2026. “To be sure, FWA as a category continues to capture by far the largest number of new broadband subscriptions, with an estimated 892,000 in Q2, taking the total number of subscribing households to 18.1 million,” wrote Moffett. He did note that T-Mobile has stopped reporting subscriber net additions for FWA, so its totals include estimates for the last two quarters.
“If our estimate is accurate, then FWA net adds were down around 85,000 versus the year prior,” wrote Moffett. “Two consecutive quarters does not a trend make, but the decline in Q2 would mark the largest quarterly deceleration to date, of particular note given that AT&T is still in its acceleration phase; net additions for both Verizon and T-Mobile were down significantly YoY.”
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