5G FWA CPE costs will fall significantly, thereby improving the business case for mid-band roll-outs

5G fixed-wireless access (FWA), using either mid-band or mmWave spectrum, promises to be an upgrade to 4G; many 5G FWA operators are offering unlimited data plans as well as improved speeds. However, the cost of 5G FWA CPE could have a negative effect on the 5G FWA business case, partly because it may make FTTP deployments relatively more attractive and also because it may discourage operators from deploying 5G FWA instead of 4G FWA. In this article, we assess the factors that affect the cost of 5G FWA CPE and discuss how quickly this cost is expected to fall.