T-Mobile has seen a reduction in churn for its fixed wireless service, known as T-Mobile Home Internet, said Peter Osvaldik, T-Mobile executive vice president and chief financial officer, at an investor conference today. He also noted that most customers for the offering are coming from T-Mobile’s base of mobile service customers.
“Churn has come down as the base matures,” said Osvaldik.
He likened it to post-paid mobile service, where customers are most likely to churn in the first three to nine months after signing up for service.
The news may come as a surprise to those who have predicted that customers adopting FWA will become dissatisfied with the service and drop it, even as both T-Mobile and Verizon continue to see strong customer gains for their FWA offerings.
As for new FWA customers coming primarily from T-Mobile’s mobile phone service base, Osvaldik said, “You have an embedded base that sees the value of this network,” he said—a reality that also saves on marketing costs, he noted.
T-Mobile Fixed Wireless Churn
FWA naysayers say that providers like T-Mobile and Verizon that are deploying FWA on their mobile network infrastructure will eventually run into capacity problems, but Osvaldik dismissed those concerns.
The company offers the service only in areas where it has and will continue to have fallow capacity on the mobile network after accounting for growth in subscribers and usage, Osvaldik said.
It’s a “fallow capacity, high-margin business,” he said.
According to Osvaldik, T-Mobile had 3.2 million FWA customers as of the first quarter of 2023. The company also has seen customer satisfaction scores that are 30 points higher than those for cable companies and 10 points above fiber providers, he said.
The service offers speeds in the range of 200 Mbps, which is comparable with what cable companies provide, even if advertised speeds are higher, he added.
Osvaldik also reiterated that T-Mobile’s target for the FWA service is market share in the mid-single digits.
“Consumers are telling you there is a space for this product,” he said.
Osvaldik made his comments at Bank of America C-Suite TMT Conference. A replay is available at this link.
