T-Mobile US talked up its efforts to bridge the digital divide as it revealed it had made its 5G fixed wireless access (FWA) home broadband service available to a further 5 million homes, bringing its total coverage to more than 40 million.

The operator expanded availability in 81 cities in the states of Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. T-Mobile noted of the 40 million homes now able to access its FWA service, 33 per cent were in rural areas.

CMO Mike Katz stated T-Mobile was doing “real work to bridge the digital divide” through its FWA service and other connectivity efforts.

T-Mobile stated more than 1.1 million homes in the five states lack access to home broadband services.

The operator cited research by the Greater Des Moines Partnership which found 40 per cent of homes in central Iowa had download rates of less than 25Mb/s, below the Federal Communications Commission’s definition of high-speed broadband, along with various press articles noting 25 per cent of students in Oklahoma lacked home broadband access.

Some of T-Mobile’s broadband competitors in the five additional states include Mediacom, Suddenlink, Cox Communications, ViaSat, Charter Communications and Comcast.