Meeting the Requirements of Rural Community Broadband Connectivity

Cellular connectivity has been the powerhouse of economic growth and societal development over the past 25 years. However, much of those benefits have been conferred on towns and cities while rural communities have been underserved. According to 2018 United Nations Population Division data, almost half of the world’s population (44.3%) live in rural areas. Approximately 800 million people worldwide do not have viable access to broadband telecommunications—fixed or mobile. The unrealized goal of complete rural connectivity can be attributed to two main factors: a) the financial challenges that mobile telcos face in rolling out last-mile connectivity, and b) the on-grid electrical infrastructure gap between rural and urban communities.

To overcome these challenges, a range of solutions have been proposed. Some of them, such as Google’s project Loon (now discontinued), were certainly novel and perhaps a little too novel for most mobile operators. Satellite communications have had their role to play in backhauling traffic from very remote locations. The potential of low Earth orbit solutions from SpaceX’s Starlink and OneWeb joining the ranks of Intelsat, Hughes, and Viasat could shake up the economics of backhaul delivery. In the meantime, the cellular infrastructure vendors have been busy innovating and addressing the various challenges of offering cellular coverage and backhaul in rural communities.

Rural communities require a specialized mix of cell site solutions to address their needs. The traditional macro cell site is generally deployed by operators for wide coverage scenarios, but they also need to utilize low-cost cell site infrastructure for optimized coverage. Small cell solutions can provide “infill” and “targeted” coverage in communities that may often contain 3,000 residents or less.

All the major vendors have developed increasingly cost-effective solutions, but Huawei’s RuralStar cell site solution is well regarded in the mobile operator community for meeting those requirements. Ericsson’s Psi coverage solutions is also positioned for the rural cellular market. Rural cell sites do have a number of requirements:

• Mobile Broadband Connectivity: Mobile broadband is vital for rural societal and economic development, therefore “pure” 2G cannot satisfy the requirement; 3G or 4G is the only viable option. A single radio supporting “2G and 3G” or “2G and 4G” would reduce costs and provide the required mobile voice and broadband data services.
• Transmit Power: High transmit power (e.g., 40 watt (W)/60 W) could provide better coverage, but the resultant power consumption would lead to higher energy costs and may not be sustainable for a rural deployment. In many countries, the reality is that the rural cell site needs to be solar-powered due to the lack of reliable electricity. Higher power consumption means solar energy costs also multiply. The investment in additional solar equipment is often greater than the cost of the actual basestation equipment. For more localized coverage, lower-powered, or 10 W per channel, basestations can strike an effective balance.
• Viable Long-Distance Backhaul: Mobile telcos need a low-cost backhaul solution, so using in-band cellular backhaul using LTE to relay traffic back to the core network can lower backhaul costs. LTE relay uses the operators' existing cellular band resources and supports non-line-of-sight transmissions. Therefore, operators do not need to invest in additional backhaul spectrum resources for rural communities. Huawei claims it has made additional progress with LTE relay technologies. RuralStar Pro is based on the ITU’s Integrated Access and Backhaul (IAB) concept, which has relay capability and integrates the LTE relay and small cell connectivity components into a single unit that is easier to manage and install.
• Power Supply: As mentioned earlier, many rural cell sites are severely constrained in their access to power. Diesel Generators (DGs) may be an option for macro cell sites, but they are not economically viable for small cell sites where the cost of fuel can represent 40% to 50% of the projected Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Furthermore, DGs are prone to theft whereas the latest cell site solutions increasingly rely on solar power.
• Anti-Theft and Vandalism: It is important that on-site lithium batteries operate at higher voltages (48 volts) than regular civilian-powered appliances and use security code-based modules that can disable the battery to help deter theft. SMS-based notification procedures can also warn mobile telcos about potential theft of solar panels or other cell site equipment. Adding fences increases site costs, so all electrical boxes should be installed high on the cell site pole to make theft more difficult.
• Cell Site Setup: Experienced field engineers are often in short supply. One of the more time-consuming elements of deployment is the cell site’s foundation. Some of the more innovative deployments that ABI Research has witnessed include the adoption of prefabricated, steel frame foundations that can be buried 2 meters underground. Using these more optimized deployment solutions enables reducing cell site setup to 2 to 3 days.

There is considerable pent-up demand for cost-effective rural cell site deployment. Rural connectivity faces several engineering, logistical, and economic challenges. In many emerging markets, the disposable income of end users constrains the available investment by mobile telcos. The Average Revenue per User (ARPU) in Nigeria, India, and Indonesia is US$3.35, US$2.15, and US$2.64 per month, respectively. These very low ARPUs mean that mobile telcos have a razor-thin TCO budget.

Solar-powered aerostats (fixed-wing planes that maintain a set flight plan), along with tethered basestation balloons and next-generation satellite communications solutions will continue to put pressure on the cellular infrastructure providers, but so far they continue to innovate in various underlying technologies that make up a cell site. Over the next 5 to 10 years, ABI Research expects sustained investment in rural cellular Radio Access Network (RAN) infrastructure. The compound annual growth rate for these targeted- and infill-type small cells across all rural regions will be higher than for macro basestations, with the global number of rural small cells installed estimated to reach 544,000 by 2024.