PARTNER CONTENT: Recently, the FWA Industry Forum was held at the MBBF 2021. This forum was first held in 2020, and this year’s event brought together 5G FWA network operators, network equipment suppliers, industry alliances, and CPE suppliers to share their experience and industry progress of 5G FWA and explore constructive ways to advance the 5G FWA industry.

Duan Ke, President of Wireless Network & Cloud Core Network Marketing & Solution Sales Department, Huawei, inaugurated the forum. “The rapid growth of 5G FWA has accelerated the monetization of 5G commercial networks,” he said in his opening remarks. “Huawei is looking to build a mature E2E 5G FWA industry. We hope that the experience shared at this forum will further promote the development of 5G FWA and help operators secure business success.”

Xu Daozhou, Vice President of 5G&LTE TDD Product Line, Huawei, believes that 5G FWA has already emerged as a major 5G business. He shared the latest progress of Huawei’s 5G FWA solutions. “Huawei’s 5G FWA supports flexible network resource allocation with eMBB services and provides a premium experience for 4K home broadband services and high-quality private line connectivity for enterprises. It has helped operators increase their market presence. We will continue to develop innovative solutions to help operators build business success”.

Operators: Developing 5G FWA as a Major 5G Service Will Contribute to Ultimate Business Success

Tiago Rocha, CMO of Zain, Saudi Arabia shared how it has benefited from 5G FWA. “We treated 5G FWA as a major business in our pursuit of 5G Massive MIMO development. As a result, our subscriber base expanded swiftly, and we have also witnessed a drastic DOU increase. Due to its premium experience, 5G FWA has beaten other fixed networks, becoming the winner of Ookla’s “the fastest fixed network award”.

Ville Partanen, DNA Vice President of Service Development, Finland, remarked that: “We have achieved significant progress in developing 5G networks, providing 5G services to over one half of the country’s population. We have chosen to develop 5G FWA alongside with our fiber business, and now 5G FWA is already the most subscribed access mode in home broadband services. In this process, we also recommended users to install outdoor CPE devices to improve signals and service experience.”

Pradeep De Almeida, GCTO of Dialog, Sri Lanka focused on the progress and future plans of the FWA business since the 4G era. “Our 4G FWA users have exceeded one million. We will begin to deploy 5G Massive MIMO soon as 5G FWA will enable us to maintain the momentum and surpass what we have achieved in 4G.”

Industry Organizations: 5G FWA Is Maturing as a Major Model for Global HBB

Pablo Iacopino, Head of Research and Commercial Content at GSMA, attributed the unmatched wireless access experience of 5G FWA to Massive MIMO and other technologies that aim to improve spectral efficiency. He maintains that 5G FWA has already become a major access mode for global home broadband applications.

Joe Barrett, President of GSA, commented that the 5G FWA industry is developing rapidly. “With a quick increase in both the number of vendors and product models, the 5G FWA industry is maturing rapidly.”

CPE vendors announced at the forum that they will soon launch more high-performance and cost-effective (US$100) CPE products to meet various user requirements.

The 5G FWA industry is maturing rapidly. Everyone attending the forum agreed that, with the rapid deployment of 5G, 5G FWA will definitely see more rapid development.