Connectivity is an essential public service. Daily lifestyles, businesses, governments, schools, and households are all at a disadvantage without seamless, fast, and reliable internet connectivity. This is a significant concern within rural areas. According to ITU, the global percentage of individuals using the internet in rural areas (46%) was 1.8% lower than in urban areas (82%) in 2022. Though a notable gap remains, service providers – such as DSL, fixed wireless, cable internet, and fiber-optic – with the aid of government funding, have made a huge push to close the digital divide. This has seen the above ratio decrease from 2.3 in 2019.
The responsibility is often passed to wireless providers to cover the often isolated and robust “last mile”. Many people think satellite connectivity is the only solution for wireless broadband in rural areas. While the top satellite providers can reach impressive speeds, it is not cost-effective for anyone residing in a rural area to pay the expensive monthly rates. What is needed is a cost-effective wireless broadband solution that can provide sufficient connectivity, as well as withstand the harsh conditions typical of a rural environment.
Importance of rural connectivity
Many rural communities have suffered gradual population growth for years, with the ‘opportunity gap’ widening between rural and urban areas. Digitalization can play its role in reversing this trend, and help make opportunities accessible regardless of location and deliver reliable, ubiquitous connectivity to all.
Many factors make internet access even more vital, especially for rural towns and their residents. Rural residents are more likely to be older and more susceptible to health issues. A poor connection can be an issue for health providers who cannot directly reach their patients. Health providers also rely on seamless internet connectivity for remote patient monitoring and online appointments. The younger generation is also hampered by slow or non-existent broadband as they require a strong connection for their online studies, home-working, and leisure.
Broadband services are also vital for businesses and other public sector organizations. Businesses in rural areas with improved internet access have a better chance to grow, which equates to more jobs and higher household income. For first responders, such as firefighters and ambulance services, limited bandwidth or sporadic connectivity can prevent access to vital information, applications, and real-time data. Subsequently creating serious issues and threatening the effectiveness of their crucial day-to-day tasks.
Terrestrial challenges
With federal broadband funding efforts already taking place, these cable providers can continue to build out their networks and create a backbone for rural towns. But the main issue that stands in their way when connecting rural areas is the “last mile”. The “last mile” refers to the portion of the network that physically connects the end-users to the network’s backbone, providing the bridge to connect their premise and devices. The last mile is one of the network's most expensive and hardest parts to build and operate.
The dispersed nature of a rural area is the greatest hurdle that service providers must overcome when connecting houses, buildings, and businesses with cable, such as fiber. There is often a significant amount of distance between these amenities and the street cabinets and telephone exchanges. This means that data has to travel further to reach the end user, which ultimately leads to increased latency and slower speeds. The OECD advised that fixed download speeds in rural areas were 31% below the national average, whereas speeds in cities were 21% above the average.
Deployment of cable is much slower in rural areas than urban ones and this is due to rural areas being harder and more expensive to reach. This also proves to be an issue for service providers when upgrading their networks and infrastructure to provide the fastest broadband and support the latest technologies. This means service providers will potentially need to lay new cables, which can be damaging to their return on investment (ROI). Building and maintaining cable such as fiber optic infrastructure requires specialized skills. In general, there remains a lack of trained fiber engineers and technicians in the industry with the capabilities needed to deliver the ambitious fiber rollout plans. Rural areas, especially face a shortage of trained professionals or limited access to local talent pools. This also leads to delays in project execution of the proposed rollouts.
What is needed is network connectivity that can be deployed easily and cost-effectively for the “last mile”.
Delivering wireless broadband to the far corners of rural areas
Broadband coverage is needed even in the most far-reaching corners of any community. Whether it is lifesaving access to tele-remote medical assistance or remote learning, a high-capacity network with failover redundancy is required. Not only this, but the network must also be easily and quickly deployable and robust enough to withstand the harsh environments of rural areas.
In a mesh network, wireless nodes can be deployed on any asset, anywhere, to extend or enhance coverage for voice, video, data, and autonomous applications. These nodes can integrate within the network seamlessly and extend existing infrastructure such as satellite, fiber, and LTE technologies. They can be attached to both fixed structures and mobile assets such as streetlights, telephone poles, police cars, fire engines, and even people. This can provide vital communications for public services to provide a timely and effective response in a disaster, with vital voice, data, and video communications flowing 24/7/365.
The nodes can also possess Wi-Fi access point service that is compatible with commercial off-the-shelf client devices, like laptops, tablets, and smartphones. This means that the network can easily be extended to schools, churches, and even homes where infrastructure and backhaul may not even exist – ultimately extending the high-capacity broadband line throughout the “last mile” of a rural city or town.
A mesh network can create hundreds of potential paths to direct data traffic. This enables an intelligent network to dynamically select the fastest path or paths for the connections, ensuring no single point of failure. As a result, the effects of interference, even in harsh RF environments, can be mitigated. The ability to leverage multiple paths and frequencies also provides high capacity to guarantee the performance of bandwidth-intensive applications. The right mesh network can provide “Smart City” enablement of IoT devices such as traffic lights, surveillance video, public Wi-Fi, and public safety equipment.
If you’re not connected, you’re not in the game
As our society and lifestyles evolve, it is important that the network moves with full mobility to expand and enhance what is possible in an age of technological interconnectivity.
Wireless mesh networks are an appealing solution for bridging the digital divide between urban and rural areas. High-speed internet coverage brings renewed possibilities to communities attracting commerce, services, and amenities.
