As the anticipated recession-riddled clouds of 2023 roll in, enterprises and research firms are reflecting on the past year and setting forth their forecasts for the next. One of the emerging through lines: fixed-wireless access (FWA) – particularly enabled by 5G – is going to play an increasingly big role in connecting underserved and rural markets.

While addressing the digital divide has been chiefly a fiber-first approach, it’s been a big year for 5G and FWA, and their cohesion may yield a more influential role tackling the issue in 2023, according to IBM GM Andrew Coward.

U.S. carriers have touted their 5G progress, and as this growth continues, Coward believes 5G’s increasingly economical price point will enable growth within lower-income markets as operators continue to disincentivize older technology generations.

“5G technology will continue to move from the premium market toward a more affordable one as widespread adoption and increased competition among the chipmakers helps drive costs down,” Coward told SDxCentral. “While there’s still a large demand for 4G keeping prices high, a larger 5G ecosystem will see an increase in not only providers in the market but also the continued desire to make previous ‘Gs’ obsolete so the spectrum can be reapplied to 5G.”

Coward claims carrier competition for 5G-fueled FWA will continue on a "rapid growth path throughout 2023."

Carriers are also looking to bring FWA to underserved market segments, Coward added.

“All the major carriers are focused on delivering wireless home internet to rural areas,” Coward explained, adding that an estimated one-third of mobile FWA growth is charged by rural customers.

Coward’s comment rides a similar wavelength to a slew of stances throughout the year – including Counterpoint’s report hailing 5G FWA as a “killer use case” for bridging the digital divide.

More recently, Qualcomm’s “5G and the Digital Divide” report stated 5G FWA will close digital division through its rapidly improving coverage and capacity along with its increasing affordability. The report also projects that if 5G FWA is fully deployed by 2032, global GDP will increase by $3.3 trillion “with middle- and low-income economies seeing their GDP per capita increase by 5% or more,” and provide “850 million people with access to high-speed internet at home for the first time.”

T-Mobile US also released its “2022 State of Fixed Wireless” report reflecting that FWA has “massively disrupted the traditional internet industry … growing by more than 70% across all providers since Q1 of this year.”

“That shift is expected to continue. T-Mobile and Verizon are expected to have 11 to 13 million total FWA customers by the end of 2025,” the T-Mobile US release stated.

Ultimately, Coward believes the most critical players driving the FWA ecosystem are federal and local governments pushing initiatives like the Infrastructure, Investment Bill and America Jobs Act (IIJA) to fund bridging the digital divide.

Contrastingly, Tom Beirith, co-founder and COO of the blockchain-based mobile network operator XNET, told SDxCentral that "many of these under-connected groups actually have funding now, but the problem is the operators. They don’t want to do any of that stuff. Why put a million dollar tower somewhere where you know [there are] 50 people?”

With rising pressures on operators to address underserved communities, 2023 may see more 5G FWA feeding the market.