In a recent discussion with Donna Johnson, Chief Marketing Officer at Inseego, we explored one of the fastest-growing segments of enterprise connectivity: 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA). Our conversation ranged from Inseego’s longstanding role in wireless innovation to evolving enterprise use cases, customer requirements, the impact of 5G standalone (SA), and the company’s newest product introduction, the FX4200. Johnson highlighted how organizations are shifting from viewing wireless as a backup option to adopting it as a primary connectivity solution, particularly as performance, reliability, and ease of deployment improve. She also emphasized the growing opportunity for channel partners and carriers to expand their service portfolios with FWA-backed offerings.
A Company Built for the Wireless Edge
Inseego is well known in the wireless community, positioned squarely at the edge of the connectivity landscape. As Johnson noted, “We really are focused at that edge connectivity via wireless technology… we like to differentiate ourselves in ease of use, having a broad portfolio, meeting our customers where they are.”
For 25 years, the company has aligned closely with advancements in cellular technology—partnering with Qualcomm, pioneering mobile hotspots, and steadily expanding an enterprise-grade FWA portfolio. This narrow focus on connectivity rather than broader networking infrastructure has allowed Inseego to innovate quickly and deliver products tightly aligned to how businesses operate today: distributed, mobile, cloud-connected, and bandwidth-dependent.
Customers, Johnson added, appreciate the predictability of the experience. Whether for mobile users, remote workers, or fixed sites, she consistently hears that users value “the consistency and the predictability of having connectivity where they need it, when they need it, without necessarily having to compromise performance or security.”
Why FWA Is Accelerating Now
For years, FWA was often treated as a tertiary backup to wired broadband. But the shift to 5G, and particularly mid-band deployments across North America, is creating new performance thresholds that enable FWA to serve as a primary connectivity option in many scenarios.
According to Johnson, FWA is the fastest-growing category in 5G adoption, driven initially by consumer households but increasingly by businesses. Several forces are converging:
- Gaps in fiber availability: Even within major cities, not every commercial building or retail location has access to modern broadband.
- Economic efficiency: FWA is often more cost-effective than trenching fiber or upgrading outdated copper lines.
- Rapid deployment needs: Retail pop-ups, construction trailers, temporary sites, and mobile operations benefit from zero-touch installation.
- Redundancy requirements: Organizations want affordable, fully diverse failover, not just a second wired link from the same provider.
With 5G SA deployments expanding, the business case grows even stronger. Johnson emphasized that uplink performance, critical for video creation, collaboration, and cloud applications, has dramatically improved. It should be noted that theCUBE leverages the FX4100 when onsite at events to upload videos after they have been streamed live.
Where Enterprises Are Deploying FWA
Enterprises are selectively deploying 5G FWA where wireless advantages align with business needs. These include:
- Retail and restaurant locations that require solid connectivity for point-of-sale, guest Wi-Fi, or operational IT systems.
- Education, banking, and financial services branches where reliability and security are essential.
- Construction sites and mobile offices that require fixed connectivity for months at a time and must relocate easily.
- SMBs without dedicated IT teams that need simplicity and strong default performance.
While FWA may not replace wired broadband for large corporate campuses or high-density offices, it is proving to be a powerful option for distributed edge sites and smaller footprints.
Introducing the FX4200: Expanding Enterprise FWA Capabilities
A key part of our discussion centered on Inseego’s recently announced FX4200, a multi-carrier 5G FWA platform designed to address enterprise requirements more comprehensively than the earlier FX4100.
According to Johnson, the FX4200 was designed to offer support for multiple carriers for flexibility, performance, and availability. That flexibility is essential for businesses that operate in multiple regions or maintain mobile, distributed environments.
Notable Enhancements Include:
- Multi-carrier support:
Allows businesses to choose the carrier with the strongest coverage per site—or switch carriers as needs evolve. - 2.5 Gbps Ethernet ports:
Supports higher bandwidth demands and enables more robust local networks. - Integrated battery:
Enhances business continuity by maintaining connectivity during power outages, keeping operations like point-of-sale systems running. - Enhanced installation experience:
A new front-display screen paired with battery mobility allows users to walk a device around a site, locate optimal signal strength, and lock in placement before powering on permanently.
In addition, the device supports soon-to-be-released Dual SIM, Dual Standby (DSDS) capabilities, enabling faster failover between carriers, an important feature for organizations seeking resilient, carrier-diverse connectivity.
These capabilities align strongly with enterprise priorities around uptime, redundancy, and operational simplicity.
How 5G Standalone and Slicing Expand the Opportunity
Beyond performance improvements, 5G standalone introduces new architectural capabilities that will shape future enterprise services.
Johnson highlighted network slicing as one of the most meaningful developments on the horizon. “Slicing… allows you to dedicate a certain segment of your connection to specific types of traffic,” she explained. Low-latency slices could support AI applications, while cost-optimized slices could support IoT workloads.
The ability to match connectivity performance with business requirements—over a wireless medium—has broad implications for:
- Managed network services
- AI and analytics workloads at the edge
- IoT deployments
- Retail and consumer experiences
- Multi-site operational consistency
This also presents opportunities for channel partners and MSPs. Many maintain strong networking practices centered on wired infrastructure but have not yet incorporated cellular into their offerings. As Johnson put it, “If you are providing network services and you don’t yet have some form of cellular capabilities… this is a huge opportunity.”
OurANGLE
Organizations are rethinking how to ensure consistent, high-performance connectivity across geographically dispersed environments. With the rise of distributed work, cloud access, video-centric collaboration, and IoT, network reliability is now a foundational business requirement.
5G FWA, particularly when paired with enterprise-grade platforms like the FX4200, provides:
- Faster deployment
- Increased agility for mobile and temporary locations
- Enhanced redundancy
- Flexible carrier selection
- Improved business continuity
- Stronger management and visibility for distributed IT
As Johnson summarized, “We believe that the future of the world is wireless. If it can be unwired, it will be.”
Based on the trends we are seeing across enterprises, carriers, and the partner ecosystem, that future is already taking shape.
