A new study of fixed wireless access (FWA) providers and their internet access speeds shows that operators continue to improve their speeds, with T-Mobile’s median download speeds increasing by more than 50% from 134.99 Mbps in Q4 2023 to 205.44 Mbps in Q4 2024, according to Ookla.
The analysis found that AT&T’s Internet Air FWA customers experienced strong median download speeds of 150.47 Mbps as of Q4 2024.
Verizon, which has more than 4.3 million FWA subscribers, saw its median download speed rise more than 12% from 132.55 Mbps in Q4 2023 to 150.47 Mbps in Q4 2024.
“5G fixed wireless access (FWA) has steadily gained popularity in the U.S. over the past four years and now the service has more than 11.5 million subscribers —and that’s just counting the FWA subscribers from the big three nationwide operators,” explained Sue Marek, Ookla’s editorial director and part of the company’s analyst team “Today FWA is considered a viable broadband competitor, and its traction with customers has caused many cable operators to lose customers to FWA.”
Marek also reported that the study also found improved Upload speeds, which are becoming increasingly important to consumers and remote workers. “Our data shows that median FWA upload speeds increased from Q4 2023 to Q4 2024 with T-Mobile’s upload speeds consistently outpacing the competition,” Marek noted. “T-Mobile’s upload speed increased 9.05% from 19.88 Mbps in Q4 2023 to 21.68 Mbps in Q4 2024.”
FWA operators, however, saw less improvement in the area of latency, which is important for streaming live events and gaming.
“Unlike FWA upload and download speeds that have improved from Q4 2023 until Q4 2024, latency figures have remained somewhat static for Verizon and AT&T while T-Mobile’s latency has declined,” Marek wrote. “Latency is a key measurement because higher latency will impact real-time applications such as online gaming and video conferencing.”
More data and the full article is available here.
