T-Mobile US hailed progress in Q3 during an earnings call in which it asserted leadership in the fixed wireless access (FWA) sector and predicted a rapid rise in users over the next four years.

On the call, T-Mobile stated it is on track to serve 500,000 home internet subscribers by the year-end and expects to serve 7 million to 8 million by 2025. It claimed to have outpaced rival Verizon’s 5G FWA additions during Q3.

T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert (pictured) explained FWA customers are typically either rural or dissatisfied cable users, adding at least 5 per cent of its home internet subscribers use 1TB of data per month.

“It looks like the usage, while it rises, is not rising as fast as our capacity”.

T-Mobile noted similar high demand for 5G mobile broadband: Sievert said Magenta Max unlimited plan customers use an average of 35GB per month, three-times greater than its 4G users. “We think it’s on its way to 80 GB a month”.

Sievert argued the figure showed the “smartphone is the first killer app of 5G”, reiterating comments made by president of technology Neville Ray during MWC21 Los Angeles.

William Ho, principal analyst at 556 Ventures, told Mobile World Live a recent price cut should contribute to T-Mobile’s user target for 2021. “They’ve always had the reputation of under promising and over delivering”.

Numbers
In Q3, T-Mobile reported net income of $691 million, down 44.9 per cent year-on-year, with revenue 1.8 per cent higher at $19.6 billion.

Post-paid net phone user additions fell 2.3 per cent to 673 million.