Page 31 - SAMENA ELITE - June-September 2025

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Fibre and 5G Continue to Expand their Footprint, while Fixed Wireless
Access Gains Ground in OECD Countries

“Future-proof” technologies, like fibre While FWA accounts for only 5.8% of connectivity demands in underserved
and 5G, are steadily expanding their all fixed broadband subscriptions in areas are increasing. Satellite sub-
footprint. Fibre now represents 44.6% the OECD, it offers a practical and scriptions grew by 22.6% in the past
of all fixed broadband connections cost-effective alternative, particularly year alone, with the United States
across the OECD, with four countries in underserved regions where access accounting for 74% of total satellite
exceeding the 80% threshold for fibre's to high-quality connectivity can be subscriptions in the OECD where data
share of total fixed broadband con- challenging. are available.
nections: Iceland (91%), Korea (90%),
Spain (88%) and Lithuania (80%). Total In some countries, FWA represents a Mobile broadband subscriptions
5G subscriptions grew by 48% over larger role in the share of fixed broad- continue to grow steadily. Despite
the last year and now account for 33% band subscriptions. For example, it already high penetration levels,
of total mobile subscriptions across accounts for 39% in Czechia, 23% in subscriptions rose by another 16%
the OECD (in countries where data is the Slovak Republic, 20% in New Zea- between June 2021 and June 2024,
available). These trends highlight a land, 18.7% in Estonia and 12% in Italy. reaching 1.9 billion by mid-2024—up
continued shift toward high-quality Several of the countries above the from 1.66 billion three years prior.
connectivity. OECD average, such as New Zealand, Japan and the United States main-
face geographic challenges that tain the highest penetration rates,
According to the latest OECD data, make fixed wireless solutions more with 206 and 197 subscriptions per 100
fixed wireless access (FWA) subscrip- attractive. This includes large and inhabitants, respectively. Estonia (173)
tions grew by 17% from June 2023 to sparsely populated countries such as and Finland (159) follow closely. This
June 2024. Hungary (71%), the United Australia (10%), Canada (7%) and the sustained growth largely reflects the
States (39%) and the United Kingdom United States (6.8%). continued expansion of 5G networks,
(30.4%) recorded the highest growth now deployed in 37 of the 38 OECD
in FWA connections over this period. Satellite is also gaining ground as countries.

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