Page 23 - SAMENA ELITE - Jan-Mar 2024
P. 23

23




        thanks to strong growth of indoor    current and future. The full survey   The 5G FWA future is bright
        devices, which were forecasted to    report is available to download from   As more operator networks are
        reach 21.6 million units, translating to   the GSA 4G/5G FWA Forum website   upgraded to LTE-Advanced, more
        growth of 34% annually. When adding   here: https://gsacom.com/paper/    5G networks are built out and more
        battery-operated routers to the mix,   fixed-wireless-access-survey-2023/.   5G CPE devices are commercialized,
        overall FWA shipments are expected   It is worth noting that the GSA 4G/5G   there is no doubt that the number of
        to rise 26% in 2023 to 32 million units   FWA Forum team also discussed   5G FWA services will continue to rise
        as illustrated in Figure 4 below.    the key findings of the survey in   with increasing demand from rural
                                             more detail during a webinar held in   and suburban areas to access high-
        Much more information can be         September 2023. You can access the   speed, reliable wireless connectivity
        found in the report as companies     recording here:  https://gsacom.com/  but also value-added services such
        were surveyed on a range of topics   webinar/fwa-forum-cpe-vendor-       as TV packages, streaming platform
        including shipments, market trends,   survey-findings/.                  access, gaming packages and so on.
        form factors and device features,                                        Technical advances such as RedCap
                                                                                 could also contribute to accelerate
                   Figure 5 - Shipments of FWA devices by type, millions of units
                                                                                 the migration from 4G to 5G FWA
                                                                                 in particular in rural areas and
                                                                                 developing countries by contributing
                                                                                 to reduce the cost of devices. RedCap
                                                                                 will be a new topic to be monitored in
                                                                                 our next FWA CPE Survey. In addition,
                                                                                 if today few operators offer 5G FWA
                                                                                 speed guarantees (examples: 3
                                                                                 Austria, DNA in Finland, Optus in
                                                                                 Australia), technical evolutions will
                                                                                 facilitate such offerings to become
                                                                                 more commonly available.
                                                                                 Both the FWA CPE Survey and the
                                                                                 FWA Market report are expected to be
                                                                                 updated in May 2024 while the next
                                                                                 GSA 4G-5G FWA Forum online event is
                                                                                 planned in mid-June 2024.



            Source – GSA 4G-5G FWA Forum’s “FWA CPE market survey 2023”, Sample: 25 respondents in 2021,
                                    26 in 2022 and 27 in 2023




            The GSA 4G-5G Fixed Wireless Access Forum
            The GSA 4G-5G FWA Forum recognizes the important role 3GPP-based 4G-5G FWA technologies play in offering
            a fast, economically attractive and future-proof alternative to deploying broadband services, particularly for
            rural and less densely populated areas. Since its creation in late 2020, the GSA 4G-5G FWA Forum has grown
            to 57 companies (as of February 2024) that are promoting the benefits of 4G-5G FWA for high-speed wireless
            broadband as well as their own position in this growing ecosystem. 4G-5G FWA device suppliers currently form
            the bulk of the membership but there are also network infrastructure, module, chipset and service companies
            involved in the Forum who support our activities.


            Overview of key activities in 2023
            One of the main deliverables has been a 4G-5G FWA   The Forum also delivers an annual FWA CPE Survey
            Ecosystem Catalogue, which is now in its 10th iteration   report (https://gsacom.com/paper/fixed-wire-
            (https://gsacom.com/paper/fwa-ecosystem-cata-      less-access-survey-2023/) to help the industry better
            logue-issue-10/) and promotes a wide range of FWA   estimate the real market size and identify the major
            devices, chipsets and modules. The catalogue can be   trends of the 4G-5G FWA device market. The 2023
            downloaded from the GSA website www.gsacom.com     survey report was released in September 2023 and a



                                                                                                        SAMENA ELITE
   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28