Verizon Communications reported 194,000 net additions for its new fixed wireless access service (FWA), driving the wireless company to its best home broadband quarter in a decade, with a total of 229,000 high-speed internet customer adds.
“And this is not a one-off. You can see from the current broadband trends that the demand for fixed wireless is extremely high and growing,” Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg told equity analysts during the company's quarterly earnings call last week.
The FWA growth exceeded analysts’ consensus forecasts and represented strong growth over the 78,000 FWA subscribers added in the fourth quarter of 2021, as well as the 17,000 tacked on in the first quarter of last year.
Driven by proliferation of its C-band network, Verizon predicts it will be able to offer 5G FWA service to 50 million households and 14 million businesses by the end of 2025.
Led by Verizon and T-Mobile, the wireless industry is trying to claw back home broadband market share amassed over the last decade by cable companies, which now control around 70% of the U.S. high-speed internet market.
Vestberg, though, said Verizon experienced “record low levels of churn” for its legacy Fios wireline broadband products, which added 35,000 customer net additions in Q1.
Meanwhile, Verizon's Fios TV business continues to whittle away, losing another 78,000 customers from January to March.
Overall, Verizon reported total revenue of $33.6 billion in the first quarter, up 2.1% year over year. ▪️
