The broadband communications market is undergoing a period of massive realignment after suffering under cable industry dominance for two decades. Not long ago, serious broadband analysts complained about a “looming cable monopoly” while we’re now burying cable’s corpse.

For several years, the best overall analyst forecast for this increasingly complex market has been done by New Street Research and its partner Recon Analytics. Their latest installment, the Dec.2^nd “The future of broadband 3Q25,” is chock full of serious analysis of subscriber growth and decline, buildouts, the impact of government policy, profitability, and customer satisfaction.

The latter metric, measured by component net promoter score (cNPS) is the most important. cNPS dives into the willingness of consumers to recommend a provider based on sentiment around the elements of broadband service, things like value for price, installation, Wi-Fi quality, billing, tech support, and speed as well as the catch-all “complete experience.”

New Technologies are Winning

Old-school networking marketers stressed speed over all other factors; we see this in ads touting the fastest networks. But the reality is that today’s new networks are able to far outstrip the requirements of average users.

Fixed wireless access – using the cellular network for home broadband – and low earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations easily meet the practical needs of most consumers, and fiber to the home is a clear winner over cable for reliability, value, and performance.

FWA and fiber clobber cable on cNPS scores for overall experience, price/value, tech support, and all other categories. Hence, FWA is adding subscribers at a 15 percent quarterly clip while cable is losing them at two percent.

FWA bundled with mobile service from a provider that treats customers as we want to be treated hits the market’s sweet spot.

The Most Dynamic Broadband Market Ever

A dynamic market in which the players are operating outside their traditional lanes is much harder to assess than yesterday’s cable-dominated one. The fastest growth in mobile subscriptions is found among cable companies, while the fastest growth in residential broadband subscriptions is now found among FWA and fiber providers.

While consumers enjoy lower prices and bundles tailored to our individual needs, analysts struggle with forecasting. While some read the NPS tea leaves, others – including Doug Dawson and Craig Moffett – depend on data volume and revenue estimates to peer into the future.

This approach is problematic because network capacity is determined by so many factors: infrastructure density, capital spending, internal radio spectrum allocation, as well as government factors such as permitting and spectrum allocation across providers.

Cable desperately hopes that FWA will hit a wall that prevents expansion. Their analysts say that limitations on data capacity driven by spectrum shortages are their best bet. The calculus is “for cable to survive, FWA must fail.”

Spectrum Policy Limits Consumer Choice

FWA certainly could meet customer demands faster if it could get more spectrum rights. This is why providers are so excited by the 800 MHz target for new spectrum licenses in the OBBB.

Cable knows this. Hence, it has made erecting barriers to spectrum auctions the key part of its survival plan, where second fiddle is played by expanding into unserved rural areas. This takes the form of positioning itself as the one true champion of Wi-Fi, the presumed loser from the OBBB auction plan.

Frankly, this strategy is bizarre. Wi-Fi doesn’t care what technologies users employ for Internet access. Wi-Fi simply connects devices in a home or office to each other, regardless of which device happens to be an actual Internet gateway. Telcos need – and use – Wi-Fi for the same reason cable does: to convenience its customers.

Wi-Fi’s Real Champion

Over the decades that people have been plugging devices into local networks, telcos have made massively larger contributions to Ethernet and Wi-Fi than cable has. The true champion makes the tech better; it doesn’t try to collect an Internet access fee for each computer as the cable overlords did in the ‘90s.

The origin of Wi-Fi goes back to AT&T subsidiary NCR’s team in the Netherlands in the late 1980s. They wanted it for supermarket scanners, of all things, as the Internet was not yet on anybody’s radar. Peeling back the layers on the components of the Internet, Ethernet, and Wi-Fi reveals enormous telco innovation.

In fact, the leading producers of Wi-Fi chips – Qualcomm, MediaTek, and Apple – are heavily invested in 5G and 6G mobile chip and fully cognizant of the cross-pollination.

Where We Go From Here

FWA, like all Internet access technologies, relies on Wi-Fi inside the home to an enormous degree. Wi-Fi has a perfectly fine set of spectrum rights in the 5 GHz and lower 6 GHz bands today. Even a ten-year-old Wi-Fi 5 network can reach gigabit speeds over 5 GHz spectrum that satisfy the needs of most people.

Recent advances in Wi-Fi (mostly borrowing ideas from mobile) have enabled it to hit higher speeds on existing spectrum. Wi-Fi is in good shape, especially in residential settings. But consumers are clamoring for FWA where it’s not yet available. The OBBB recognized this fact.

It’s time to get on with the auctions that will give consumers what we really want. We will get there by taking a step back from the pretzel logic that places more value on networks inside the home than on those that connect homes to the Internet.