5G FWA finds a high-speed home in US urban areas – Ookla study

• More than 17 million 5G fixed wireless access (FWA) connections are in use across the US, Census Bureau figures reveal
• The technology was originally envisaged as primarily a rural broadband technology option
• But it has been widely deployed in US urban areas, where users are experiencing better broadband speed performance than those in rural areas, according to Ookla
• T-Mobile US continues to lead its main domestic rivals in Ookla’s 5G FWA speedtests

5G fixed wireless access (FWA) connections in the US topped 17 million in the first quarter of 2026, with the technology notably gaining traction in urban areas, according to analysis from Ookla Research.

FWA technology is used to provide 13.74% of the nation’s 123.75 million home broadband subscriptions, according to figures from the US Census Bureau’s January 2026 American Community Survey. Speedtest data from Ookla, which used the bureau’s urban-rural classifications to categorize user data, found that roughly 70% of second quarter 2026 FWA test samples it gathers for analysis from end users originated from urban users, and just 30% from rural areas.

While the Accenture-owned testing company was keen to stress that its Speedtest Intelligence data does not directly equate with subscriber count, it does offer a proxy look into overall market distribution.

FWA was initially touted as a solution to help deliver broadband in rural communities where it is either too difficult or too expensive to deploy fibre-to-the-premises connections. With that opportunity in mind, one of the conditions imposed on T-Mobile US when it was given the green light to acquire Sprint in 2020 was binding commitments to expand low and mid-band 5G coverage across rural and underserved communities, which it pledged to do using its 2.5GHz spectrum allocation.

As a result, T-Mobile US invested in the rollout of FWA, for its Home Internet service, relatively early and consequently has had longer to develop and finesse its offering – the operator dominated its key domestic competitors in Ookla’s Q2 2026 speed tests, with a median download speed of 222.7 Mbit/s, 38.4% faster than AT&T Internet Air and 76% faster than Verizon’s 5G Home. Similarly, T-Mobile US’s Q2 2026 median upload speed of 18.1 Mbit/s was 80.1% faster than AT&T’s speed and 48.5% faster than that of Verizon’s service.

Ookla’s testing actually found that all three of the big US carriers experienced a performance drop in both download and upload speeds between the first and second quarters of this year: This could be down to seasonal reasons, the analysts claim, as dense leaves can weaken FWA signals. Ookla said that previous testing had unveiled seasonal patterns that suggest a decline in speeds during the spring and summer months, with hotter temperatures also interfering with networks: It wrote about these seasonal patterns in a previous report.

However, it is the successful deployment of FWA in urban areas, where fibre deployments are possible but still a strain on resources, that stands out from Ookla’s latest study.

The company noted: “The technology shines in dense urban areas where short signal distances between close-together small cells and cell towers maximize performance. Providers like Verizon leverage millimetre-wave (mmWave) spectrum to push massive amounts of data over these short distances. In addition, FWA is much easier to deploy and eliminates the headaches associated with urban fibre deployment such as costly trenching, expensive municipal permits, and heavy construction fees.”

Speedtest data from across the US shows that during both Q1 2026 and Q2 2026, urban download speeds across all three providers consistently exceed rural download speeds, though the gap is not the same across all of the providers, as the chart below shows. 

T-Mobile US maintains the smallest differential between urban and rural performance, though AT&T Internet Air users in rural markets had an upload speed advantage over those in urban markets in both Q1 2026 and Q2 2026.

The Ookla Speedtests found that rural users face significant trade-offs compared with those connected by fixed broadband lines, such as lower median download speeds and higher latency. The seasonal factors referenced earlier are also more prominent in rural areas, Ookla added.

- James Pearce, Editor, TelecomTV