ZTE, Nokia, and Huawei Lead ABI Research’s 5G FWA CPE Vendor Competitive Ranking

A new Competitive Ranking by global technology intelligence firm ABI Research has found that ZTE is the leading 5G FWA CPE vendor, beating both Nokia and Huawei for the top spot overall and across both the innovation and implementation criteria. The assessment provides an in-depth, unbiased examination of ten CPE vendors' 5G FWA CPE portfolios. The companies evaluated and ranked are:

Market Leaders: ZTE, Nokia, Huawei
Mainstream: Inseego, Zyxel, Ericsson, Tozed Kangwei, Vantiva
Followers: Arcadyan, Cisco

“The 5G FWA market is rapidly growing and is now a proven monetization strategy for service providers. FWA of previous cellular generations was viewed as a backup or placeholder broadband technology for both the consumer and enterprise verticals; however, the advancements within both the 5G networks and CPE technology have allowed it to become considered a viable alternative to fixed broadband going forward,” explains Larbi Belkhit, Industry Analyst at ABI Research.

Ten criteria were chosen for this analysis, segmented between innovation and implementation clusters. These included the commercial success of the CPE vendor, value proposition offered, support and implementation, diversity of a vendor’s client base, KPIs of a flagship CPE, technological leadership, portfolio diversity, partnerships, network management capabilities, and security features.

ZTE led the competitive ranking overall, closely followed by Nokia and Huawei. ZTE had strong scores across the innovation and implementation criteria, ranking first for both due to their commercial success and their latest flagship CPE – the G5 Ultra – which utilizes AI technology to improve bandwidth efficiency and lower network congestion.

“The growth in demand for 5G FWA services is leading to the necessity of improvements to the spectral efficiency of CPE that are made available to customers to ensure that service providers can continue expanding their client base without overloading the network. While the leaders in this competitive ranking are strong in the consumer segment, enterprise-focused vendors such as Inseego and Ericsson offer advanced network management capabilities, a technology that will become more necessary for service providers in the consumer space long term to offer high-end services for their FWA customers,” Belkhit concludes.

These findings are from ABI Research’s 5G FWA CPE Vendor Competitive Ranking report. This report is part of the company’s 5G, 6G & Open RAN research service, which includes research, data, and ABI Insights. Competitive Ranking reports offer a comprehensive analysis of implementation and innovation strategies to offer unparalleled insight into a company's performance and standing compared to its competitors.