AT&T launched an enterprise-focused version of its Internet Air fixed-wireless access (FWA) service, following up on a tease from its CFO earlier this month and setting the stage for AT&T to battle rivals Verizon and T-Mobile US in the enterprise market.

John Blinkiewicz, VP of enterprise mobility at AT&T, explained that the aptly titled Internet Air for Business service is targeted at small- and mid-sized enterprises in areas where “we have a broadband presence but obviously capture opportunity where we don't have broadband out of region.”

The service will be available across AT&T’s nationwide mobile footprint, with performance based on the carrier’s deployed spectrum and technology platform, including its 4G LTE and 5G network. This includes access to all of the spectrum AT&T has deployed across its network.

Enterprises that select the service will initially be provided an AT&T device that acts as a Wi-Fi router within a location that has traffic backhauled to AT&T’s mobile network. This device will include four Ethernet ports, is Wi-Fi 7 certified and has two-by-two antenna support for up to 128 devices. AT&T will also offer a Wi-Fi extender for locations that need more coverage.

Blinkiewicz explained that as the service moves further upmarket the carrier expects to bring on device support for enterprise-focused devices from third-party vendors like “your Cradlepoints and your Ciscos and those types of vendors.”

AT&T is initially offering two tiers of service. The “standard” tier is $60 per month plus fees and before any discounts. It provides unlimited data with backhaul speeds that could be slowed due to network congestion. There is also a “premium” tier for $100 per month plus fees and before any discounts. It provides maximum backhaul performance for up to 250 gigabytes of usage per month before AT&T might slow access due to network congestion.

Blinkiewicz noted that the carrier will monitor network performance and make any availability adjustments as needed. However, he added that the usage characteristics of an enterprise are offset from those of a traditional consumer user.

“In your business world, your application support, you think about Microsoft Teams, you think about video conferencing applications, typical kind of business support voice applications — most of those are low bandwidth-type needs other than video conferencing, versus your consumer who's got Netflix, video streaming, those types of things,” Blinkiewicz said. “When you roll up overall consumption, you can imagine that those consumption patterns are going to be different. And then when you layer that onto the time-of-day question, [Internet Air for Business is] spread out through kind of a nine-to-five window, whereas consumers are kind of tightly packed into that five-to-nine window.”

The service is set to target three specific use cases.

The first is for areas where AT&T’s fiber assets are not currently available. AT&T operates its own fiber-based service in its traditional 21-state wireline footprint, which it’s planning to reach at least 30 million locations by the end of next year. AT&T is also expanding its fiber reach outside of that footprint through its Gigapower joint venture with BlackRock.

The second Internet Air for Business focus is for customers looking for an alternative to their current (non-AT&T) fiber, cable or DSL broadband connection. “It's a great alternative to either cable or DSL for customers that are looking to trade out of a cable situation that they may be frustrated with or a DSL connection that may not be fast enough,” Blinkiewicz said.

The service is also being targeted as a redundancy option for customers either for a current AT&T fiber customer or as a backup for another form of broadband. AT&T itself highlighted the redundancy model last month when the carrier’s mobile network suffered a multihour outage that has since drawn “discussion” with government regulators.

The launch continues what has been AT&T’s slowly warming embrace of FWA service.

The carrier officially launched its Internet Air service last August. It was focused on the consumer market, but the carrier was modest in its rollout and adoption expectations.

AT&T rivals T-Mobile and Verizon, which have both been offering their respective FWA services for several years, each added around 500,000 new FWA customers during the fourth quarter. T-Mobile ended the year with 4.8 million 5G-powered FWA connections, while Verizon counted 3 million FWA connections.

AT&T, in contrast, has been more focused in rolling out the consumer service and stated that it ended last year with approximately 93,000 total connections.

AT&T CEO John Stankey during AT&T’s most recent earnings call noted that he views FWA as a good “catch product” for consumer locations where the carrier is decommissioning its legacy copper wired services.

“It’s a very effective catch product in some of those areas, especially given the density characteristics of what’s happened, that we haven’t built fiber there yet or we will not build fiber, but it still allows us to meet our obligation back to the customer base and our state franchise agreements,” Stankey said.

Stankey has also expressed the need for a consumer-focused FWA service to operate with a different business model.

“Mobile bits are going to be higher-value bits. They’re going to need to be engineered differently. They should sell at a premium because of the supply-and-demand dynamics on it,” Stankey said during an earnings call last year. “And I want to ensure that my mobile network is, in fact, delivering that premium solution on those mobile bets when they need to be provided. And it’s absolutely 100% there to do that.”

AT&T’s management has been more vocal in expressing an enterprise opportunity for the FWA service.

“We understand the cost to serve bandwidth on a mobile network is much more expensive than a fixed network,” AT&T CFO Pascal Desroches told attendees at an investor conference earlier this month. “And if you are a high-consumption user … you’re selling a product at a discount to fix and it’s going to cost you more to serve that product. … We never thought the economics were attractive long term to use it as a solution for consumers on a broad-scale basis, and our views on that haven’t changed. While it may feel good today to those that are really leaning in, over time the cost to continue to add capacity to the network will make many of them rethink the offering.”

Verizon and T-Mobile have both highlighted enterprise adoption of their respective FWA services. Verizon CFO Tony Skiadas told attendees at an investor conference late last year that the carrier’s business unit accounted for more than one-third of the carrier’s robust FWA connection growth.

AT&T is now set to compete at that level.

“We’re expecting it to be extremely well received,” Blinkiewicz said. “We've seen the growth numbers from our competition. We know that we're the third entrant here, but we’re extremely aggressive, we feel like the product is extremely well placed, we're excited about the plan that we've got in place and the expectation is that we're going to be a fast follower here.”