Cable operators and their hybrid-fiber coax (HFC) internet access approach will continue to be the dominant fixed broadband delivery system with a 65% share of the residential market in 2027, predicts analytics firm GlobalData.

Cable’s position will be helped by all that government subsidy money in programs like the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) effort overseen by the National Telecommunications & Information Administration, which has more than $40 billion in broadband subsidies to give out. Then there are the Federal Communications Commission’s Universal Service Fund billions and the COVID-19-related money that agency is overseeing.

In its latest report, United States Fixed Communications Forecast, GlobalData also predicts the residential broadband market will grow from $84.5 billion in 2022 to over $102 billion in 2027, but not with much help from satellite broadband efforts like Elon Musk’s Starlink.

While cable operators will lose some market share over that span due to competition from telco fiber overbuilds, GlobalData predicts cable will hang on to the prime position due to improved HFC.

Fixed wireless is a growing success story, the company said, but it is still expected to represent less than 10% of the market by 2027.

As for the low-earth-orbit satellite fixed wireless services from Starlink and OneWeb, GlobalData predicts they will hardly make a dent in the market at less than 1% share in 2027. ▪️

The FCC's conclusion in 2016 and again in 2018 that mobile broadband is not a "functional substitute" for fixed broadband is outdated and needs to change.

That is the conclusion of a June study of 10,000 consumers commissioned by the Internet Innovation Alliance.

IIA honorary chairman Rick Boucher said the FCC relied on the 2016 analysis in making the determination they are not substitutes, and that those findings are now obsolete. He said it was time for a fresh look at fixed and mobile broadband, and the IIA was sharing the findings and an accompanying white paper with the FCC Tuesday (July 17).

Boucher said 43% of respondents either preferred mobile or had no preference, with 47% saying they preferred fixed, which Boucher said was functional equivalency. 

He also said consumers use wired and wireless in the same ways across various functions, including streaming video or watching news and reports.

Boucher said the FCC should tell Congress in its next annual report on availability of advanced communications that the two are functional equivalents.

Related: CWA Says Wireless Is No Substitute for Wired Broadband

The FCC is under a congressional directive to periodically assess deployment of advanced communications and is empowered to regulate in the event it finds it is not being deployed in a reasonable and timely manner, as was the finding of the report under FCC chair Ajit Pai's Democratic predecessors.

Boucher said the goal is for the FCC to use the most current data when it reports to Congress, which has made it clear that deployment of advanced communications is a key policy goal.

Consumers are seeing fixed and mobile services as exchangeable on price, affordability and speed, not simply that they would like mobile as well as fixed, all those things being equal, Boucher said, adding that when 5G arrives, the numbers will shift dramatically toward the mobile side.

But even with the numbers moving toward functional equivalency, fixed broadband remains the preferred access point, with 26% saying that was their preference, versus 23% for mobile, 20% no preference, 14% fiber and 7% DSL.