Verizon’s billion-dollar investment in its C-band spectrum holdings to power its 5G network have already started to pay off for its fixed-wireless access (FWA) push, which it now hopes will help jumpstart slow-to-develop private network and mobile edge compute (MEC) services.

Sowmyanarayan Sampath, recently named EVP and CEO for Verizon Consumer Group, told investors at this week’s SVB MoffetNathanson TMT Conference that the carrier’s C-band-fueled FWA service accounted for nearly 40% of all industry broadband net connection additions for the first quarter of this year, a result that highlighted the carrier’s build-out plan for that spectrum and service.

“That's how strong our fixed-wireless franchise is and it could not have been possible if we didn't have 5G both from a capacity and a speed perspective,” Sampath said. “And I'll tell you, look today on the current C-band that we have, we can reach speeds of 900 [Mb/s] to 1 [Gb/s] speed. When we get the new band, we can go up to 2.4 [Gb/s] in terms of speed. … It's a great business and we made the right call on C-band to grow that space.”

That “new band” mentioned is tied to a recent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) filing by Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile US and U.S. Cellular that will allow those operators to gain near full-access to the C-band (3.7-3.98 GHz) spectrum they spent more than $80 billion to acquire in early 2021. Verizon is currently using an average of 60-megahertz of C-band spectrum for its 5G network, though it acquired an average of 160-megahertz of spectrum across the country.

Sampath’s FWA enthusiasm was echoed by rival T-Mobile US, which remains the FWA leader among the nation’s cellular operators.

T-Mobile US Chief Marketing Officer Mike Katz during the carrier’s most recent earnings call labeled its FWA-based “home internet service” as “one of the big killer apps for 5G that you are seeing play out right now.” This was linked to the carrier adding approximately 600,000 new FWA customers during the first quarter, pushing T-Mobile US’ customer base to 3.2 million subscribers.

Verizon’s FWA growth has come with very little additional investment. Sampath explained that the carrier does not have any “FWA-exclusive builds in the network,” meaning that all of its FWA customers are tapping into network infrastructure that was deployed to primarily serve its traditional mobile customer base.

“At some point we will when we get to that point and that will be a clean [return on investment] decision whether we build capacity for FWA or not,” Sampath said. “We don't have that today.”

ABI Research predicts 5G-based FWA connections will hit 72 million worldwide by 2027, representing 35% of the total FWA market. It cited current and planned deployments in North America and Western Europe as driving market growth over this time frame, with markets like India expected to support ongoing growth.

This includes Verizon’s deep millimeter-wave (mmWave) spectrum holdings, which the carrier is currently running off sites that also support lower-band spectrum holdings.

“Millimeter wave is on 30,000 sites already today … so a lot of people use it,” Sampath said. “It's available on almost all the handsets that we sell, except for some of our prepaid handsets. People use it more than people think they use it. It's a great experience, and invariably people over a period of time will end up using it more.”

Sampath’s numbers differed slightly from the more than 40,000 mmWave sites noted earlier this year by colleague Kyle Malady, who is EVP and president of global networks and technology at Verizon. The carrier earlier this year did stuff a large chunk of its deep mmWave spectrum holdings into a network test that supported 5G upload speeds in excess of 1 Gb/s.

Sampath also touched on the benefits Verizon’s ongoing network virtualization efforts have on being able to more quickly allocate network assets as needed. “The ability for us to add capacity quickly is quite easy,” he said.

Verizon is also continuing to see progress with its private network and MEC efforts.

Sampath said the carrier’s private networks “is doing well,” noting the carrier went from just a single installation mid-2022, to now having “tens of installations, new installations every single quarter, that business is growing very fast.”

The executive also touted Verizon’s unique position in the broader market tied to its control over licensed spectrum, including those deep mmWave holdings.

“It's a pretty accretive business for us because we own the licensed spectrum it runs on,” Sampath said. “That's the key to it. A system integrator cannot run and manage things that are on licensed spectrum. And if you are going to put a private network, by and large, you want it on licensed spectrum. Otherwise, why would you put a private network in place because the value is so much more accretive on licensed versus unlicensed spectrum.”

That advantage could be huge if the private network market continues to build toward expectations.

Analysys Mason predicts the private 5G market will grow at a 65% compound annual growth rate between 2021 and 2027, hitting 39,000 deployments at the end of that timeframe. That growth will be on the back of investments it predicts will grow from $1.5 billion in 2022 to $7.7 billion by 2027.

“There will always be players, that's a reasonably crowded market, but very few do it on licensed spectrum,” Sampath added. “It's us and probably a couple of the other carriers who do that. So that gives us an advantage point.”

Verizon’s private 5G network ambitions are also key to driving the still slow-to-develop MEC market. Sampath explained the former is laying groundwork for the latter, noting once private 5G network growth accelerates “it will grab the mobile edge compute business case along with it.”

This “good layering of the cake” on top of private 5G is starting to drive use cases, with Sampath pointing to “warehouses, logistics, supply chain, venues, those are four or five places where we have seen traction.”