The extent of fixed wireless fandom in the US might surprise some who have recently been dismissing the technology as inferior and its recent subscriber growth as temporary.

With 56% of fixed wireless survey takers indicating they were very satisfied with their broadband plans, the group ranked highest on the satisfaction scale, according to our recent survey.

These respondents were subscribers to one of the smaller regional wireless internet service providers or on plans from leading national providers such as T-Mobile US Inc.'s Home Internet, AT&T Inc.'s Internet Air or Verizon Communications Inc.'s 5G Home Internet. The fixed wireless group was followed by Space Exploration Technologies Corp.'s Starlink, with 54% of survey takers indicating they were very satisfied, and Verizon Fios at 51%, according to our first-quarter 2024 MediaCensus survey of 17,743 broadband customers. Fiber providers AT&T and Frontier Communications Parent Inc. rounded out the top five "very satisfied" groups with WideOpenWest Inc. topping our results across the cable providers at 46%.

For all broadband types combined, on average 41% of survey respondents said they were very satisfied with their broadband plans.

Comparing this year's results to 2023 shows strong growth at Frontier, which grew its "very satisfied" audience by 9 percentage points from 37% to 46% since 2023. Subscribers on the Suddenlink portion of Altice USA Inc.'s operations logged an improvement of 2 percentage points in very satisfied customers.

As of 2023, rural customers were the most satisfied when comparing neighborhood density types. This was driven by strong satisfaction with fixed wireless and Starlink, which are among some of the only broadband options available in many rural markets. At 26% of respondents, suburban areas have the least satisfied customers with urban customers in the middle at 33%.

We also tracked satisfaction by speed tier at some of the leading operators. As might be expected, the faster the service, the happier the customers. For instance, of the eight packages from Comcast Corp./Xfinity we reviewed, the most satisfied customers indicated subscribing to its top-tier 2,000 Mbps download option, Gigabit X2 plan, along with its Superfast, 800 Mbps download plan, both with 60% of subs being very satisfied.

^{Join Kagan broadband expert and senior analyst John Fletcher along with host Mike Reynolds, senior reporter, for "Broadband by the numbers: Adds, losses and closing the digital divide," an S&P Global Market Intelligence on-demand podcast in which Fletcher shares his thoughts on which broadband providers — cable, telco, satellite or fixed wireless — still have room for growth in an age where broadband has very much become a utility.
Data presented in this article is from the MediaCensus survey conducted in the first quarter of 2022 to 2024. The sample included 20,004 (2022), 18,203 (2023) and 17,743 (2024) US internet adults matched by age and gender to the US Census. The survey results have a margin of error of +/-0.4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. Survey data should only be used to identify general market characteristics and directional trends.
Multichannel Trends is a regular feature from S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan.}