Tag: broadband

What is the Controversy Over 5G Home Internet

How well 5G Home Broadband solutions perform could affect telecom stocks over the next few years. This is because not all parties are convinced that 5G wireless is going to succeed, or at least be capable of competing with cable broadband services. While T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless have begun marketing and selling their 5G Home Internet plans, AT&T has no plans on pushing this service option. 

Currently, there’s been a controversy amongst cellular providers and cable TV companies over telecom stocks. It’s even possible that 5G services could compete with local phone companies in areas that are still served by copper line-based DSL services. 

“Verizon and T-Mobile think the service can be a growth driver and will have attractive economics,” UBS analyst John Hodulik told Investor’s Business Daily. “FWA (fixed wireless access) is likely to do better where there are limited options for broadband and among subscribers used to lower speeds, so that means legacy DSL subscribers and slower speed cable.”

He added, “The big question is whether FWA has staying power over the next 5 to 10 years given necessary speed increases.”

Is 5G Wireless Worth the Cost?

AT&T has opted not to get into the fixed wireless game at this time. Their reason is simply that it lacks potential. In comparison, due to data usage surges over time, FWA can become less economic than fiber-optic landline alternatives.

“I think it stems from a genuinely different view of the engineering and capacity constraints,” MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett told IBD. “The divergence in views about fixed wireless access between AT&T and Verizon or T-Mobile speaks to a genuine controversy in the telecom industry.”

He also stated that telecom companies are scrambling to make money from huge investments in 5G radio spectrum.

“The renewed appetite for FWA may be a sign of a dawning realization that the gee-whizzy use cases of 5G may never materialize,” Moffett said. “That could be forcing operators to revisit every possible source of incremental revenue in a bid to earn at least some return on their huge investments in 5G spectrum.”

The Broadband Competition

If you’re fortunate enough, there are cable TV options with high speed Internet options. For those who are not, and don’t want to try relying on satellite, there’s cellular and FWA. 

Comcast, one of the largest cable TV companies, says it’s not concerned with broadband competition from fixed 5G wireless services.

“Time will tell, but it’s an inferior product,” Comcast Chief Executive Brian Roberts said at a recent Morgan Stanley conference. “And today, we can say we don’t feel much impact from (it). It’s lower speeds. And in the long run, I don’t know how viable the technology holds up.”

To put it into perspective, Eighty-seven percent of U.S. households subscribe to an internet service at home, according to Leichtman Research Group. Cable TV firms comprise 70% of the broadband market, per LRG.

At the end of 2021 Verizon had about 223,000 fixed wireless broadband customers, though most were connected via 4G wireless networks. On the other hand, T-Mobile had 646,000 fixed broadband subscribers, all connected to 5G.

Per Wall Street analysts, T-Mobile is expecting to serve a range of 7 million to 8 million fixed 5G wireless subscribers by 2025. Verizon has estimated 3 million to 4 million subscribers over the same period.

AT&T and Fixed 5G Wireless

Another area of fixed 5G has been debated over and that is whether it could be more successful in suburban/urban markets or in rural areas.

“FWA is definitely a threat to cable companies,” Peter Rysavy, head of Rysavy Research, said in an email. “Particularly with (high frequency) mmWave, 5G can compete directly with cable. Mid-band spectrum is also effective but is best suited for lower density population areas. In these deployments, even T-Mobile limits the number of fixed wireless subscribers it can support in any geographical area.”

At UBS, Hodulik says that even if positioned as a low-end service, fixed 5G broadband still has a potential market of 20 million to 30 million homes.

As much as AT&T may not want to get into FWA, they have a sizable wireline local service area in 22 states. That means it will face competition from fixed 5G broadband, just like cable TV firms.

“AT&T has a huge wireline asset base that is only 25% upgraded to fiber,” Oppenheimer analyst Tim Horan told IBD. “So they are very exposed to competition from fixed wireless.”

At an analyst day on March 11, AT&T said it plans to upgrade 50% of its local markets, about 30 million customer locations, to high-speed fiber-optic broadband service by year-end 2025.

AT&T’s CEO, John Stankey, commented on the controversy over FWA saying that they see FWA as playing a limited role for mobile small business and enterprise applications, as well as in rural areas.

“We’re not opposed to fixed wireless, and I’m sure there’s going to be segments of the market where it’s going to be acceptable and folks are going to find it to be adequate right now,” Stankey said.

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What’s New with T-Mobile’s 5G Fixed Wireless Service

Everyone is in competition with each other for the Super Bowl, not just the players or fans, but the companies whose ads play during the game. While Verizon got Jim Carrey to reprise his role in the “The Cable Guy,” T-Mobile brought back “Scrubs” with actors Zack Braff and Donald Faison singing a duet – to the tune of “I Feel Pretty” – about how great its home internet services are. They also had some hilarious PSA-type ads with the great Dolly Parton, and Miley Cyrus, urging people to think of 5G phones.

Since the Super Bowl, T-Mobile has expanded its 5G home internet service in three states – Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio. This brings the carrier’s 5G Home Internet offering to 62 cities and towns across the three states, with coverage spanning nearly 5 million homes. Overall, T-Mobile says 30 million homes are eligible for its fixed wireless access (FWA)-based service across the country.

Wednesday’s announcement highlighted part of T-Mobile’s strategy to make FWA available in markets where there is little or no choice for traditional broadband. This would certainly give them an edge, if they can make it happen. According to T-Mobile, there are at least 3 million people in these three states who don’t have any access or only have one option for a broadband provider.

In a statement Kentucky State Representative Mary Beth Imes praised the expanded coverage effort, saying thousands more households now have access to unlimited high-speed internet.

“T-Mobile Home Internet has expanded access in Kentucky, bringing our state a real competitive option for broadband where many households are still left without any option or any good option,” Imes said.

In the announcement, Akron Mayor Dan Horrigan emphasized that T-Mobile’s expansion is helping to make broadband access more equitable.

“In Akron, families rely on home broadband now more than ever before,” he noted. “But throughout the pandemic, options for reliable connectivity have been lacking, and for some households, non-existent.”

T-Mobile is charging $50 per month for home internet, as long as you setup with autopay. They guarantee no added taxes or fees, price hikes, equipment costs or data caps. Just like Verizon’s 5G Home Internet, customers can self-install the gateway in what T-Mobile says is a 15-minute process. 

T-Mobile is of course bringing in FWA subscribers mainly from more urban and suburban areas. These are generally areas that already have multiple options for broadband Internet. According to a recent Evercore report however, it’s suggested that areas with few options are where fixed wireless has some of the most potential. Overall, the firm found that fixed wireless speeds from different providers across the U.S. varied widely and that cable or fiber often delivered better performance.

“Outside of urban areas with millimeter wave, cable and fiber are able to offer a superior product to fixed wireless, and we expect that many of the fixed wireless net adds in rural areas will be households transitioning from DSL to fixed wireless where cable or fiber is not available,” Evercore stated.

With that being said, there was a report from New Street Research last month that noted when FWA additions from T-Mobile and Verizon are factored in (which totaled 302,000 combined), cable lost share of the overall broadband market in the fourth quarter of 2021. 

“If this result holds, the last two quarters may be the first time Cable hasn’t taken share in well over a decade,” New Street’s Jonathan Chaplin wrote in a February note to investors.

T-Mobile ended last year with 646,000 home internet customers after adding 224,000 FWA subscribers in the fourth quarter. The carrier’s new goal is to increase its fixed wireless subscribers to 7 million to 8 million by the end of 2025. In comparison, Verizon added 78,000 FWA net additions last quarter, ending the year with a total of about 223,000.

Predictions from LightShed Partners came in last month for 2022, forecasting T-Mobile and Verizon would add 1.8 million wireless home broadband customers this year. This is more than double what they added in 2021. The firm noted spectrum depth as the key to speed and capacity carriers need to play competitively in this home broadband market.

“They have been spending tens of billions of dollars on this valuable asset and now they plan to deploy a ton of it,” wrote LightShed analysts in January.

Some analysts however, such as those at MoffettNathanson, see T-Mobile’s goal as more of a challenge.

“The math of acquiring 7-8M customers from an addressable pool of just 30M is daunting enough – it implies something between 23 and 30% penetration of addressable homes, an arguably absurdly ambitious target,” wrote MoffettNathanson analysts in a December report.

Part of the challenge MoffettNathanson highlighted relates to capacity and aligning FWA subscribers with cell sites or sectors that have the most available, as operators want to make sure more valuable mobile customers don’t have their experience hampered by FWA usage.

“It will be relatively easy to acquire FWA customers initially, when almost all cell site sectors are ‘open,’ but it will get harder and harder over time to match demand to precisely those pockets of supply where the network can safely tolerate loads of this magnitude,” Moffett noted.

Also important to note – T-Mobile places a cap on the number of FWA customers it will take on in addressable markets, and once it hits a certain threshold in an area, closes it off to new customers until someone drops the service.

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Inseego 4G/5G Routers Now Available at 5Gstore

Think back to the first time you saw or used a mobile WiFi hotspot. That’s where our new partner, Inseego got its start. For the past 25 years, they’ve been leading the way by creating entirely new types of devices that allow users to connect wherever they are. 

By staying at the front of innovation, Inseego has earned the trust of leading wireless operators, technology titans, business users, government agencies and consumers.

From 2G to 5G, they’ve been through it all. In the 1990s, they started with Industry’s First Modems for Mobile Broadband.

In the 2000s,  they invented MiFi® hotspots, enabled the First Cellular Amazon® Kindle®, and the First USB Memory Stick Modem Combos for nationwide and global use. 

In the 2010s, they came out with the First Touchscreen Mobile Hotspot, with Advanced Enterprise Features and were known to have the “Highest Performance in the Market.”

Now, Inseego has released its First Commercial Mobile Hotspots and its First Complete 5G Portfolio. This includes the S2000e Enterprise 5G, FX2000e Enterprise 5G, FW2000e Enterprise 5G (Outdoor), and the FG2000e Enterprise 5G.

Inseego also invents new technologies, which make their products work more efficiently. The company holds key patents for antenna designs, thermal performance, quick response algorithms and other know-how that sets them apart from the rest of the industry. They also work with industry leaders to design, develop, test and deploy successful, end-to-end solutions.

Something else we really favor Inseego for is the simple fact that they are designed and developed in the USA. Per Inseego, “That translates into the highest quality, security, performance and reliability that service providers, enterprises and government users demand.”

We’re happy to announce that we will be carrying these new 5G products along with a LTE solution, at 5Gstore – most of which we have available today! So let us not delay our introduction any longer. 

First, for 4G LTE support only, look at the compact Skyus 160. With a small, rugged design and multi-carrier support, it keeps you connected almost anywhere for both primary and failover communications. Its Cat 6 LTE modem supports speeds up to 300 Mbps download and 50 Mbps upload. It also comes with a built-in battery for backup, so the Skyus 160 can support your most important workloads. 

Popular use case applications include mobile applications like creating a vehicle hotspot, setting up a temporary job site, or working from home. It’s also ideal for fixed environments such as SD-WAN installations for retail locations or branch offices.

Next, we have the S2000e Enterprise 5G. The Inseego Wavemaker™ 5G industrial gateway S2000e brings the best of 5G to a wide range of enterprise environments, from factories and warehouses to ports, fleets and smart city networks. This powerful, high-performance gateway can deliver multi-gigabit speeds, low latency and secure, reliable connections for facilities and distributed operations in virtually any location, from urban centers to rural areas. Use the S2000e to bring 5G to an existing router, or to connect remote surveillance cameras, kiosks, digital displays and other IoT endpoints.

Combining six antenna ports and 4×4 MU-MIMO with Inseego’s proprietary thermal mitigation technology, it delivers sustained high throughput even at the edge of the network. The S2000e provides ethernet, USB and I/O ports along with multiple power options and mounting options, offering the flexibility for almost any deployment scenario. 

Pair your S2000e with the Inseego mobile app and simplify self-installation. Inseego Connect™ cloud management makes it easy to configure, monitor and maintain the S2000e remotely. With unsurpassed RF performance and device-to-cloud intelligence, the S2000e industrial gateway opens the door to many new business solutions.

Whether you’re an operator providing high-performance fixed wireless access to your small business and residential customers, or an enterprise organization with distributed offices and remote employees, the FX2000 series is a great solution. It works well in homes, retail stores, restaurants, branch offices, medical clinics, dormitories, apartments and more.

In particular, check out the FX2000e Enterprise 5G. This is a compact indoor router that delivers fast, reliable 5G/LTE broadband to homes and businesses. It offers support for private networks, including CBRS, and boasts Wi-Fi 6 technology and ethernet with secure connections for up to 30 devices. A host of smart security and management features let users connect with confidence in their data privacy and protection.

The Inseego Mobile app makes it easy to find the best location to set up and remotely manage settings like network name and password. Users can also use the Inseego Connect™ platform to monitor, configure and troubleshoot a single FX2000 or an entire deployment of FX2000 series devices from one user-friendly platform. You can set alarm rules, schedule and run reports for data usage, signal quality, and alarm history, and group devices together to push widespread configurations.

The FX2000e offers dual SIM support and allows for auto-switching between SIMs based on signal strength, data usage, service availability, and quality. Multi-carrier firmware allows the FX2000e to be used on most major global carriers.

Look at the FW2000e Enterprise 5G (Outdoor) for more rural and suburban customers who might be at the edge of network coverage. Or, use this to provide 5G connectivity for private enterprise networks. In either case, the FW2000 series outdoor Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) uses high-gain directional antennas to extend the reach of carrier networks, providing 5G fixed wireless access (along with 4G LTE fallback at LTE CAT 22 speeds) to serve customers in more places.

The intuitive Inseego Mobile app makes it easy to find the strongest network signal and best mounting location for the FW2000 series outdoor CPEs. Once up and running the, IP67-rated FW2000 series is designed to stand up to harsh weather conditions and temperature extremes while protecting your network with enterprise-grade security.

Lastly, we have the FG2000e Enterprise 5G. The Inseego Wavemaker™ indoor router FG2000 series delivers blazing-fast internet access to homes and businesses worldwide with breakthrough 5G and 4G LTE speeds. From fast streaming to lag-free video conferencing, the FG2000 series delivers a superb 5G user experience with best-of-network performance anywhere.

The FG2000 series offers support for private networks, including CBRS, and boasts Wi-Fi 6 technology with gigabit-class data speeds with secure connections for up to 128 Wi-Fi devices. An optional RJ11 port provides VoLTE-enabled high-definition voice service. A host of smart security and management features let users connect with confidence in their data privacy and protection.

The FG2000e offers dual SIM support and allows for auto-switching between SIMs based on signal strength, data usage, service availability, and quality. Multi-carrier firmware allows the FG2000e to be used on most major global carriers. The Inseego Mobile app and Inseego Connect™ platform is also available with this device. 

If you have any interest in mobile broadband, fixed wireless access, IIoT (Industrial IoT), Enterprise SaaS, or Edge Computing, look no further than to the specialty products from Inseego.  

Contact our sales team today if you have any questions!

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5G Service Paves the Way for New Gadgets

5G service is clearing the way for the next generation of electronics. We’re seeing that it is so much more than having the Internet on your smartphone. It gives us everything from enhanced virtual-reality video games, to remote surgery. While it has been a slower rollout, we’re continuing to see waves of 5G-enabled gadgets.

Samsung Electronics Co. has teamed up with Verizon Communications Inc. to offer wireless 5G routers – ones that have the ability to match performance of wired broadband. There’s also 5G-compatible laptops from several makers. Among the latest: Lenovo Group Ltd. in August teamed up with AT&T Inc. to release a 5G laptop, the ThinkPad X13 5G. Samsung in June also introduced a new laptop offering a 5G chip – the Galaxy Book Go 5G.

If you want a 5G connection on your yacht, miles offshore? Check out the Meridian 5G, a Monaco-based provider of internet services for superyachts advertises what it calls a 5G Dome Router (much like Pepwave’s HD Dome routers). It provides a combination of antennas and modems that allows yachts sailing within about 60 miles of the coast to access 5G connectivity. 

New drone technology unveiled in August by Qualcomm Inc. with 5G and artificial-intelligence capabilities. The technology, called the Qualcomm Flight RB5 5G Platform, enables higher-quality photo and video collection, the company says. Drones equipped with the 5G technology can be used across a range of industries, among them movie making, mapping and emergency services like firefighting, Qualcomm notes.

Additional hardware will include Internet of Things type devices like our smart speakers and doorbell cameras. This can of course apply not only to home and office appliances, but industrial equipment, hospital equipment, vehicles, etc. So as the coverage of 5G service slowly expands, so does the market of new technology to harness its power.

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FCC Updates the US Cellular Coverage Map

It may be no surprise that not everyone that lives in the USA has access to high speed Internet. Some only have the option of cellular broadband service, which of course requires good cellular reception. Those of you who fall into this category will be interested to know that the President and the FCC are finally working in your favor! Congress could soon pass an infrastructure bill that allocates $65 billion to improving broadband access. This is just one step in their compliance with 2020’s Broadband DATA Act, which required them to update its data and maps.

Of course, there must be service made available by the cellular providers. At this time there are still large areas where there is very little to no cellular coverage. It’s also quite difficult to determine the performance of the cellular service in any location. To help with this problem, the FCC unveiled a new interactive map to show where the nation’s four largest cellular carriers are providing voice and data services – including all the gaps.

Currently, the map only is limited to outdoor access, but an “at-home” map is still in progress. 

See more on this topic, including the map at the FCC site.

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