The New Last Mile: Why African Broadband is Moving Outdoors

Fibre-to-the-home remains the benchmark for fixed broadband, offering the uncapped capacity and latency required as household data consumption surges. But extending fibre to every doorstep presents a severe civil engineering bottleneck: trenching costs, municipal permits, rights-of-way, and complex last-mile drops make capital recovery exceptionally slow outside dense urban corridors.

This bottleneck has created a widening mismatch between surging consumer demand and the geographic footprint where fiber makes commercial sense. To bridge the divide, operators across Sub-Saharan Africa are turning to 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA).

By May 2026, 40 operators across 37 African markets had launched commercial 5G FWA services. Central to this expansion is the Outdoor Unit (ODU), premises-mounted hardware designed to optimize signal capture from nearby cell towers. In Nigeria and Kenya, Airtel has built its flagship SmartConnect offerings around ODU hardware, while Safaricom reported a 53% surge in 5G FWA subscribers to 132,060 in H1 of its 2025/26 financial year, with wireless accounting for 52.3% of its new fixed connections.

As operators build dedicated retail models, distribution channels, and subscriber bases around these outdoor receivers, the core infrastructure question shifts. In this week’s #TechTalkThursday, we examine whether 5G FWA is simply filling an immediate last-mile gap or permanently rewriting the rules of where fibre can commercially survive.

CapEx Arbitrage: Replacing Civil Works with Existing Mobile Infrastructure

The obstacle to universal fibre deployment is not a lack of operator interest, but the harsh math of customer density. In high-density urban centers, civil works expenses are easily amortized across thousands of paying accounts. In lower-density suburban and peri-urban neighborhoods, every additional kilometer of dug trench adds substantial upfront capital expenditure before securing a single paying subscriber.

FWA rewrites this investment equation by leveraging pre-existing mobile tower footprints and allocated spectrum, bypassing the need to excavate physical routes to individual homes.

Rami Osman, Director for Business Development at MediaTek Middle East and Africa, described this cost advantage in an interview with TechAfrica News:

“FWA 5G enables operators to deploy the connectivity technology in communities where fibre isn’t commercially viable. It is possible to deploy 5G with capital expenditure per user that is a fraction of digging trenches and laying down fibre, especially in areas where there are already mobile towers.”

— Rami Osman, Director for Business Development at MediaTek Middle East and Africa

This capital-efficient deployment addresses a broader mandate across the continent: unlocking economic value by maximizing legacy tower investments while scaling next-generation radio networks. As Angela Wamola, Head of Africa at the GSMA, observed:

“Private capital must be mobilized to build not just current-generation infrastructure but also the networks of the future, such as 5G… The future demands investment in emerging technologies like 5G, AI, and IoT, which can significantly enhance productivity. At the same time, leveraging existing infrastructure to close the digital divide remains critical.”

— Angela Wamola, Head of Africa, GSMA

By mounting an ODU on a customer’s roof or exterior wall, operators bypass signal attenuation caused by concrete walls, capturing line-of-sight LTE and 5G signals to turn existing mobile macro-cells into high-capacity fixed broadband hubs.

Productizing the Last Mile: The Retail evolution of ODU Hardware

Early iterations of fixed wireless were often treated as sub-optimal compromises for locations devoid of landlines. The current generation of 5G FWA represents a complete product pivot, repositioning wireless as a plug-and-play, mainstream home utility backed by specialized hardware.

In September 2025, Airtel Nigeria launched its SmartConnect 5G ODU Router at an entry price of ₦25,000 including installation, delivering speeds up to 50 Mbps. Airtel Kenya followed suit with a split-unit setup separating the exterior directional antenna from the interior Wi-Fi router.

Crucially, operators are pairing this hardware evolution with non-traditional retail distribution. Safaricom’s commercial partnerships with major supermarket chains like Naivas and Quickmart allow consumers to purchase 4G and 5G home internet kits directly off store shelves.

By moving broadband acquisition into fast-moving retail environments and simplifying line-of-sight ODU installation, operators eliminate the multi-week lead times typical of traditional fiber provisioning. The last mile is no longer a civil construction project; it is a retail transaction.

Market Co-existence: FWA As An Expansion Engine, Not a Fibre Substitute 

Rather than cannibalizing existing fixed assets, early operational data demonstrates that fixed wireless is actively expanding the total addressable market by capturing demand that fibre cannot immediately reach.

Safaricom’s performance illustrates this dual-track momentum: while 5G FWA drove 52.3% of new fixed additions (reaching 132,060 FWA subscribers), its Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) customer base simultaneously expanded by 35% to 407,080 accounts. The technologies are not fighting for the same user; they are partitioning the geographic landscape based on density and infrastructure access.

This structural split is repeating across major regional markets:

• High-Density Nodes: Fibre continues to deepen capacity within high-value urban centers where multi-dwelling units justify heavy civil works.

• Peri-Urban Frontiers: FWA rapidly captures surrounding suburban and rural demand, backed by South African market trends where ICASA reported ~39% year-on-year growth in fixed wireless subscriptions through 2025.

FWA provides operators with an economically viable middle tier between total non-coverage and high-cost fiber trenching.

The Spectrum Ceiling: Balancing Wireless Limits Against Fibre Capacity 

Despite its speed of deployment, FWA faces fundamental physical constraints. Wireless networks operate on shared, finite radio spectrum. As subscriber density increases and household consumption surges, driven by 4K streaming, cloud computing, and multi-device households, cell sites risk network congestion and throughput degradation.

Fibre, conversely, offers near-infinite throughput capacity, allowing operators to upgrade bandwidth via terminal electronics without disturbing physical ground routes.

Equipment vendors view these technologies not as adversarial substitutes, but as complementary layers within a unified network strategy. Speaking on multi-technology fixed architectures, Roque Lozano, Senior Vice President of Network Infrastructure for Middle East and Africa at Nokia, emphasized:

“Fixed wireless access (FWA) solutions integrate 4G, 5G, and fiber to provide seamless connectivity across homes, offices, and public spaces. Ensuring a consistent user experience regardless of location is key, and robust network infrastructure plays a vital role in enabling monetization opportunities as broadband demand grows.”

— Roque Lozano, Senior VP of Network Infrastructure (MEA), Nokia

Lozano’s perspective underscores the operational reality: sustainable digital infrastructure cannot rely on a single delivery mechanism.

The Blended Last Mile: Cash-flow Engine or Permanent Enclosure?

The rapid ascent of 5G FWA and Outdoor Units confirms that Africa’s last-mile challenge cannot be solved by a single, monolithic technology. The true strategic value of FWA lies in its role within a blended infrastructure strategy.

By deploying FWA today, operators monetize coverage immediately, generate cash flow from previously underserved communities, and identify localized pockets of high data consumption. In a healthy infrastructure model, these FWA revenues serve as the funding mechanism to justify pushing fiber backhaul deeper into rural and suburban nodes over time.

However, a structural risk remains. If capital allocation stops at wireless deployment, treating FWA as a permanent substitute for physical fiber rather than an expanding outer tier, operators risk creating a two-tiered digital economy: high-density urban zones anchored by uncapped fiber, and peripheral communities capped by radio spectrum limits.

The ultimate impact of the ODU bet will depend on how operators manage this transition. Used as a dynamic, cash-generating bridge within a blended network policy, FWA extends immediate connectivity while preparing the ground for deeper infrastructure. Left as a standalone solution, it risks turning a temporary last-mile gap into a permanent digital enclosure.