Fixed Wireless a Part of Convergence Plans
‘Convergence can be either fixed wireless or fiber,’ Verizon CEO Dan Schulman said.
WASHINGTON, March 3, 2026 – Verizon is using both fiber and fixed wireless connections in its pursuit of converged customers, the carrier’s CEO Dan Schulman said Monday.
“To me, one of the big growth opportunities for Verizon is in convergence,” he said. “And convergence can be either fixed wireless or fiber.”
AT&T and Verizon have bet big on convergence, the bundling of fixed and mobile broadband in an effort to reduce subscriber churn, but have emphasized fiber. Both are expanding their fiber footprints through acquisitions and their own deployments.
Schulman said Verizon sees a 40 percent reduction in churn with converged customers versus those who only have a mobile line. He spoke at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in San Francisco.
Verizon added 319,000 fixed wireless subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2025, for a total of more than 5.7 million. The residential portion of net adds, 209,000, was lower than the year before for the ninth straight quarter, but “the decline was smaller than has been the recent trend,” MoffettNathanson founder Craig Moffett pointed out in January.
Schulman said fiber was still the company’s “initial choice” for fixed broadband “just because the speeds are so much better.”
“Fixed wireless access, where we don’t have fiber, is a really good alternative,” he said. “In fact, we have more open-for-sale coming into this year on fixed wireless than we did going into last year. So I’m really pleased with the capacity that we’ve put into the network around that.”
The carrier’s C-band spectrum deployment is 90 percent complete, and the company is aiming to finish by the end of the year. Verizon was the largest winner in the Federal Communications Commission’s C-band auction in 2021, spending more than $45 billion.
Tony Skiadas, Verizon’s CFO, said at a Barclays conference last week that “both fiber and FWA are important pillars in our broadband strategy.”
“With FWA, we’ve said for a long time we’re building a long-term sustainable business,” he said. “We see a lot of room to grow there.”
AT&T had initially talked about its fixed wireless service as a means of preventing copper customers from ditching the company before they got fiber. But the company is buying up spectrum in part to boost fixed wireless capacity, and isn’t differentiating much between fixed wireless and fiber in its new national advertising campaign.
AT&T has fewer fixed wireless subscribers than the other major carriers at nearly 1.5 million. T-Mobile, which hasn’t publicly emphasized convergence as much, leads with more than 8.4 million.
Moffett has repeatedly noted that fixed wireless will have to be part of the carriers’ national convergence plans, since even ambitious fiber expansion goals of 60 million (AT&T) and up to 60 million (Verizon) still leave much of the country with only wireless.
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