CPE

In a fixed wireless access deployment, the CPE is the customer's end of the link — the device that turns a 5G (or 4G) cellular signal into ordinary home or office connectivity over Wi-Fi and Ethernet. It's effectively a stationary modem that happens to use the mobile network as its "last mile" instead of fibre or copper, which is the whole pitch of FWA: broadband to a premises without trenching cable to it.

The split that matters in practice is indoor versus outdoor CPE. An indoor unit is plug-and-play — the customer sets it by a window and powers it on — but it pays a penalty in signal because the building's walls attenuate the link, so it suits strong-coverage areas. An outdoor unit (mounted on a wall or roof, often a small directional antenna) gets a much cleaner path to the cell and far better throughput and stability, but it needs a professional install. Choosing between them is the classic FWA coverage trade-off: self-install convenience versus the link quality you get from putting the antenna outside.