If the pandemic shone a spotlight on the extent of the global digital divide, the cost of living crisis is only likely to exacerbate the problem further. Dubbed ‘the new face of inequality’ by UN deputy secretary-general Amina Mohammed, more than a billion people around the world currently live in hard-to-reach rural communities where internet access is slow, unreliable, or simply not available.
This divide isn’t just limited to developing countries. While the UK may boast lower prices for consumers when compared with key international markets, more than 1.7 million households do not have any access to the internet in their home at all.
COVID-19 brought the issue into laser-sharp focus, as reliable connectivity quickly became a crucial component for maintaining productivity for the millions of newly remote workers. The infrastructure quickly became strained as more and more people depended on often patchy and unreliable connectivity to work, shop and keep in touch with loved ones throughout unprecedented times.
But regardless of the cause - be it rising costs, a shortage of basic digital skills or a lack of access in hard-to-reach rural areas - it’s clear that change is needed. Government and businesses must work together to address this issue.
Our fibre fixation
The current approach has focused on investments in fibre infrastructure. Those who are already connected have seen infrastructure gradually upgraded to reach faster speeds. Ask any consumer or business in any of our major cities - London, Manchester or Glasgow for instance - and they will likely agree that there have been notable increases in their broadband speeds in recent years.
Data from FTTH Council shows that only 5.9% of the UK population has access to fibre. It is either completely unavailable, or difficult, disruptive, and time-consuming to install. For this reason it’s ultimately unfeasible for last mile connectivity, and is a significant contributing factor to the UK being unlikely to fulfil its pledge to offer gigabit broadband across the country by 2025. Simply put, fibre will never be the silver bullet for eliminating the digital divide as it is not suitable for those who live and work outside urban centres. A new approach is needed.
Next-generation broadband connectivity
The constantly growing demand for high-speed internet across the country is creating an opportunity for mmWave fixed wireless access (FWA) to take centre stage by delivering fibre-like internet connectivity to rural and urban areas alike.
Unlike fibre, mmWave FWA provides an economic alternative to address network densification. In addition, mmWave FWA provides an easier and more efficient solution to fast, reliable connectivity where wireline infrastructure is not present, or only copper infrastructure is available.
While most 5G FWA networks are dependent on mid-band spectrum, mmWave FWA is capable of delivering connectivity on par with fibre or DOCSIS technologies. At present, 5G mmWave operates in the 26GHz to 80 Ghz frequency range, and this spectrum is capable of delivering the multi-gigabit data rates 5G promises. However, there remains multiple unlicensed bands, including 60GHz, that hold the potential to deliver cost saving solutions to service providers.
The good news is that the momentum behind unlicensed mmWave spectrum is rapidly growing. According to the GSMA, there is already a harmonised identification of unlicensed bandwidths available for ultra-high-speed and ultralow-latency consumer, business and government services. As a next step, countries must now put it to auction and assign it to customers - at the time of writing, 16 countries around the world have done so, and this is only expected to climb across 2023. One of the countries advancing the roll out of unlicensed mmWave spectrum is the UK, with Ofcom recently announcing an auction of spectrum that will be used for private 5G as well as wide-area public mobile networks.
Bridging the digital divide with mmWave
With our day-to-day lives increasingly demanding ubiquitous, high speed, reliable connectivity, there’s never been a more important time to bridge the digital divide. Operators across the UK and beyond must now combine fibre upgrades in busy urban centres with FWA to democratise broadband connectivity in hard-to-reach rural areas.
As noted by Ofcom, the opportunities that this will unlock for societies and businesses are enormous. mmWave is about more than just delivering connectivity to homes and bridging the divide; it can offer strong competitive advantages for businesses. For instance, mmWave spectrum can support numerous innovative applications such as augmented and/or virtual reality, remote object manipulation, and intelligent transport systems, all of which require very high data rates. Numerous industries - such as manufacturing - which rely on constant connection in order to harness the cutting-edge power of IoT and AI, can only do so with reliability that today’s infrastructure struggles to offer. If these industries were to implement mmWave FWA, automated processes and increased efficiency would become within reach, regardless of whether factories are near urban centres or not.
Thanks to mmWave FWA, we now have the technology to truly bridge the digital divide in the UK and beyond. It is now down to the government, regulators and policy makers to provide the means. With online goods and services at the heart of our everyday lives, it’s never been more important to ensure that every individual and business can harness next-generation broadband connectivity.
