The Bundle Battle: Why Rural Broadband Providers Must Pay Attention to Wireless

Jeff Johnston

May 20, 2025

Key Points

• Bundles are winning: Customers increasingly prefer bundled smartphone and home broadband services for simplicity and savings – national carriers like Verizon, T-Mobile, Comcast, and Charter are capitalizing on this trend and gaining market share.
• Rural competition is heating up: Massive federal funding, expanded wireless coverage, and improving satellite options (like Starlink and Amazon's Project Kuiper) are intensifying competition in rural markets.
• Technology is enabling growth: Advances like the 6GHz band and next-gen FWA systems (e.g., Tarana) are making wireless broadband more viable and scalable – even in hard-to-serve areas.
• Smaller operators are taking notice: Regional players like WOW!, Midco, and Mediacom, along with NCTC members, are beginning to offer mobile services to compete with bundled offerings.
• The risk of doing nothing is rising: While offering mobile isn’t easy or cheap, not responding to the bundled threat could mean higher churn, lost customers, and long-term erosion of market share.

Why the smartphone-broadband bundle should be on every rural operator’s radar

Over the past few years, we’ve written about the growing appeal of bundling smartphone and home broadband services. It’s a simple idea that’s proving to be a powerful competitive force: People want fewer bills, more savings, and seamless connectivity.

Comcast and Charter anticipated increased competition from the wireless operators and as a result, have leaned heavily into this model and they are glad they did. In 2022 Verizon and T-Mobile started to pair their fixed wireless access (FWA) services with their existing mobile plans and they have been taking home broadband market share ever since. These bundles are resonating with customers. And now, the time is coming when rural and regional broadband operators may need to offer something similar.

The competitive landscape is changing fast

For a long time, rural broadband providers enjoyed relatively stable market conditions. But those market dynamics are starting to evolve. New technologies and new investment – both public and private – are reshaping what rural connectivity looks like.

The $42 billion in BEAD funding is about to hit the market, which will bring more competitors who are building new networks in rural areas. National wireless carriers are expanding their 5G networks deeper into smaller towns. And then there are the satellite providers – once seen as too expensive and too unreliable to worry about – now improving and becoming legitimate alternatives in hard-to-reach areas.

What Comcast and Charter got right

Back in 2017 and 2018, Comcast and Charter launched their mobile services as mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), running on Verizon’s wireless network. At the time, it seemed like a defensive move against the national wireless operators. The wireless industry was maturing, and growth in smartphone subscribers was slowing. With margins tightening, national wireless carriers began looking for new ways to expand their revenue base.

At the same time, 5G was just beginning to roll out, bringing with it more efficient use of spectrum and greater network bandwidth. That set the stage for FWA to become a serious home broadband option.

In fact, Comcast has gone so far as to reshape its business, with plans to spin off much of its cable TV channel lineup to focus more fully on broadband and mobile. Bundling works, and Comcast and Charter knew if they didn’t offer it, Verizon and T-Mobile would eat into their core business.

Why wireless operators love the bundle

The economics of FWA are highly attractive for national wireless carriers. It lets them better monetize excess capacity on their mobile networks, especially in rural and suburban markets where network utilization is lower. When they bundle FWA with smartphones, it drives customer stickiness and increases the lifetime value of each user. And critically, it allows them to win customers without having to give away expensive devices like free iPhones, which eat into margins.

Verizon and T-Mobile have leaned heavily into this strategy, marketing FWA as a fast, affordable broadband option that integrates seamlessly with their mobile services. They’ve built brand trust with customers through wireless, and now they’re extending that trust into home connectivity.

The threat for rural broadband providers is that these national carriers are expanding their reach and their bundles are proving popular.

New technologies will accelerate the shift

With new spectrum (like the 6GHz band) coming online, and technology vendors like Tarana introducing advanced FWA systems with fiber-like performance, the ability to deliver high-speed internet wirelessly is only going to improve. Tarana’s equipment, for example, can be integrated into mobile networks and offers better performance in hard-to-reach areas, making it especially useful in rural settings.

This technology will allow national wireless operators to densify their rural networks and scale FWA even further, putting more pressure on local broadband providers.

Meanwhile, satellite broadband is also evolving. SpaceX’s Starlink has set the pace, but Amazon’s Project Kuiper is entering the picture in 2025. And Amazon has a few tricks up its sleeve. Imagine a bundled offer where customers get broadband plus Amazon Prime, or a discount on shopping or streaming in exchange for subscribing to Kuiper. For households looking to save money and simplify bills, that’s a very real threat.

Amazon is behind Starlink in terms of deployment, but it has deep pockets and strong incentives to grow. It’s likely to come to market aggressively. And depending on how the BEAD program evolves, rural broadband operators could find themselves competing against government subsidized low Earth-orbiting satellite networks.

Smaller providers are starting to act

Some regional cable and broadband operators aren’t waiting to get caught flat-footed. Companies like WOW!, Midco, and Mediacom have announced plans to launch mobile services. Meanwhile, the National Content & Technology Cooperative has signed a master MVNO agreement with AT&T that its members can use to offer their own branded wireless plans.

Still, this isn’t an easy decision for smaller providers. Offering mobile is not most rural operators’ core business. Margins are slimmer and they give up some control of the customer experience. And building out a mobile offering requires time, money, and technical know-how.

There’s also an opportunity cost. Committing to a mobile strategy might mean slowing down fiber deployments or other infrastructure projects. For smaller teams with limited resources, this is a very real concern.

Plus, unlike the big cable companies, most smaller operators don’t have massive Wi-Fi networks to offload traffic and reduce costs. Comcast and Charter say 85%–90% of mobile traffic on their networks runs over Wi-Fi, which keeps expenses down. They’re also taking steps to increase their ownership of the network. Charter, for example, plans to deploy wireless infrastructure in areas where Verizon’s MVNO costs are highest, using spectrum it bought in the Citizens Broadband Radio Service auction.

So what should rural operators do?

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer, but here’s what’s clear: The smartphone–broadband bundle isn’t going away. If anything, it’s going to become more popular as technology improves and consumer expectations shift.

For rural broadband providers, the cost of entering mobile is real – but the cost of doing nothing could be even greater.

In some markets, the risk of national wireless competition may seem small today. But that can change quickly. T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T are investing heavily in broadband through FWA and fiber acquisitions. Their offerings will continue to improve and their pricing will stay aggressive. And if they already have a billing relationship with your customer, that’s a foothold they will use to expand their service offering.

Conclusion

The smartphone–broadband bundle is clearly what many customers want: a single provider, one bill, savings, and convenience. And the national carriers are delivering it and will likely expand service into smaller/rural markets.

Now is the time for smaller broadband operators to seriously evaluate whether offering mobile makes sense – not just to grow, but to defend what they’ve already built.