- FWA is doing well for all 3 major U.S. carriers
- But surprisingly, they are seeing a lot of urban FWA subscribers
- One analyst reports that FWA availability is going down in major urban markets
When the three major U.S. wireless operators initially rolled out fixed wireless access (FWA) the technology was envisioned as a way to earn additional revenue from fallow spectrum in rural areas.
But according to Ookla Speedtest data, roughly 70% of second quarter 2026 FWA test samples originated from urban users, compared to 30% from rural areas.
“The technology shines in dense urban areas where short signal distances between close-together small cells and cell towers maximize performance,” wrote Sue Marek, editorial director with Ookla. “Providers like Verizon leverage millimeter-wave spectrum to push massive amounts of data over these short distances. In addition, FWA is much easier to deploy and eliminates the headaches associated with urban fiber deployment such as costly trenching, expensive municipal permits and heavy construction fees.”
On a nationwide scale, Ookla Speedtest data found that during the first two quarters of 2026, urban download speeds across all three providers — T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon — consistently exceeded rural download speeds, although T-Mobile maintained the smallest gap between urban and rural performance.
The urban advantage also exists for median upload speeds for T-Mobile and Verizon users, but not for AT&T. According to Speedtest data, AT&T Internet Air users in rural markets had an upload speed advantage over those in urban markets in the first half of 2026.
In terms of latency, urban subscribers consistently enjoy 7 to 13 ms lower latency than rural subscribers across all providers and quarters, according to Ookla.
FWA availability could become a problem
AT&T recently said its 5G home internet FWA service hit 2 million subscribers. This compares to Verizon’s approximately 6.2 million FWA subs and T-Mobile’s approximately 8.5 million FWA subs as of early 2026.
But do the carriers have enough spectrum capacity to keep growing subscribers in urban markets?
Wolfe Research analyst Peter Supino wrote yesterday that FWA availability declined about 2% on average for all three carriers in July.
AT&T’s availability declined 0.6% month over month, driven by Boston (-4.1%), New York (-3.8%) and Philadelphia (-3.1%).
T-Mobile’s top three markets, New York, Miami and Orlando, which comprise about 22% of its FWA subs, saw availability decline 2.8% month over month on average.
Verizon's top three markets, Houston, Los Angeles and Dallas, which account for about 26% of Verizon's residential FWA subs, saw availability decline 1.3% compared to the previous month, on average.
“While the relationship between availability and subscriber growth is not yet visible, we note the broad decline in availability in relation to expectations for modest sequential net add acceleration at Verizon and AT&T in 3Q'26,” wrote Supino.
Read more about fixed wireless access broadband:
AT&T hits 2 million FWA subscribers with minimal marketing
Satellite operators might not take such a big slice of BEAD after all
Ericsson predicts more FWA, uplink traffic as network demand transforms