Verizon Communications on Friday touted the addition of 234,000 fixed wireless access residential customers in the third quarter and another 108,000 FWA subscribers on the business-services side, upping its total FWA base to over 1 million users.
It's been a rapid emergence for FWA technology, which lets consumers use 5G wireless networks for home internet service. T-Mobile, which reports its Q3 numbers on October 27, now has more than 1.5 million FWA customers.
Verizon added only 38,000 wireline internet customers otherwise, with less-than-expected growth in its legacy Fios internet business being offset by sustained losses of digital subscriber line (DSL) customers.
But the bottom-line addition of 272,000 total wireline broadband users for Verizon will likely be far more than either Comcast or Charter Communications report for the third quarter when they do their earnings calls next week.
For Verizon, the FWA story provides a little buffer from the more challenging economics currently impacting its core wireless business, where it added only 8,000 postpaid customers in the quarter.
And the company's pay TV presence continued to dwindle in Q3, with its Fios TV service losing another 95,000 customers, a 40% year-over-year surge in cord-cutting. Verizon has just under 3.5 million remaining Fios TV subscribers.
Verizon's stock was down around 5% in afternoon trading Friday. ▪️
