Terrestrial Fixed Wireless
Technology Code: 70
About Terrestrial Fixed Wireless
Terrestrial Fixed Wireless delivers broadband over radio links from a tower to a fixed antenna at the customer’s location, using both licensed and unlicensed spectrum. It is widely used by smaller ISPs serving rural areas that lack wired infrastructure.
Reading the FCC Numbers for Terrestrial Fixed Wireless
Terrestrial Fixed Wireless is classified by the FCC under technology code 70 in the Form 477 dataset, and nationwide it accounts for 9,599,266 deployment records. That makes it one of the most widely filed technologies in the current dataset. Each record represents a single provider declaring it serves at least one location in a specific census block with this technology class, so the count reflects the combined geographic and operator footprint rather than the number of homes or businesses actively connected.
Because Terrestrial Fixed Wireless falls in the fixed wireless family, its filings cluster in the parts of the country where that underlying infrastructure exists. State pages on this site break down how the 9,599,266 records distribute geographically, and provider pages show which operators contribute the most filings for this technology code. Cross-referencing the two is the fastest way to see whether a given market has real competition on Terrestrial Fixed Wireless or whether one incumbent dominates the filings.
One important caveat when interpreting these numbers: Form 477 historically allowed providers to mark an entire census block as served if they could reach even one address in it, which inflates apparent coverage in sparsely populated blocks. The FCC's newer Broadband Data Collection tightens this, but Form 477 remains the largest historical record of U.S. broadband deployment. Treat Terrestrial Fixed Wireless record counts as a measure of where providers have declared capability, not as a guarantee of availability, speed, or price at any specific address.
Data Source
Technology classification and deployment records from the FCC Form 477 broadband deployment dataset.
Disclaimer: Data from FCC Form 477. For informational purposes only. Deployment records represent provider filings, not guaranteed service availability at specific addresses. Always verify broadband options directly with providers.
Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.
Related
PlainBroadband is rendered directly from the FCC Form 477 fixed broadband deployment dataset (June 2020 status, the final Form 477 release), no number is typed in by an editor. This technology's coverage figures are computed directly from the underlying FCC Form 477 census-block records, no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of June 2020.