Rural Broadband: Making the Right Technology Choice

Governments around the world are looking to provide broadband connectivity to underserved and hard-to-reach citizens in rural areas. This will present significant opportunities for citizens, governments, operators and suppliers. In a project for UK communications providers, we identified six different broadband technologies that can be used to connect very hard-to-reach locations, with download performance of at least 30Mbit/s.

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All of these technologies are improving and will deliver higher performance over the next few years (Figure 2). This article briefly introduces each technique and evaluates their advantages and disadvantages.

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Deploying broadband in rural areas is economically challenging. Often, it is difficult or impossible for business operators to fully recover their investment from income paid by residents and/or businesses in sparsely populated areas. As a result, rural broadband is often delivered through government intervention; governments support investment when normal business processes fail to meet citizens' needs. As such, these interventions provide critical services that are needed but do not quite meet the criteria for normal commercial investment.

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Policymakers need to consider a number of factors, including their overall societal goals, constraints related to the amount of investment available, the role of established network operators, and their target date for universal coverage. An important choice in any rural broadband deployment is which technologies will best achieve its goals while considering these factors.

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The right technology is the one that provides the required level of performance for most locations at the lowest cost. The right technology choice will vary by country because of different levels of existing broadband coverage, different deployment costs, different residential patterns in rural areas, and different levels of government funding. In many cases, multiple technologies are required to provide the best solution.

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Six Rural Broadband Technologies to Choose From

Fiber to the Premises (FTTP)

FTTP involves laying a fiber optic connection between the end user's premises and the nearest fiber-enabled backhaul point. Using a passive optical network (PON) architecture, an optical splitter enables a single fiber at the backhaul point to serve multiple customers (typically 32 or 64 per fiber). This reduces the total amount of fiber optic cables required in the network. Performance is limited only by the terminating device. FTTP currently offers download speeds of up to around 1Gbit/s, but plans to reach speeds of 10Gbit/s and beyond. Compared to wireless technologies, FTTP is much less affected by whether other users are also attempting high-speed access at the same time.

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FTTP is the preferred fixed broadband technology in most urban environments. Most fixed broadband providers are now pushing for full FTTP deployments in urban and suburban areas. It offers very high performance, very low latency, and low ongoing operating costs. However, compared to other technologies, the upfront deployment cost of FTTP is very high. In urban and suburban environments, this cost is distributed among the many establishments passed through due to the short distance between establishments. The cost of going through each premise is much higher in rural areas, where resident locations are more sparse and the distances between each premise are large, making it very economically challenging to deploy FTTP in these areas.

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Macro FWA

Macrocell FWA uses existing mobile network infrastructure; connectivity is provided wirelessly between cell towers and 4G or 5G capable routers at the end user's premises. Coverage and download speed performance mainly depends on the frequency band used. All sites share the available bandwidth of the site (or sectors on a multi-sector site). Macrocell FWA is attractive because it leverages the mobile network infrastructure, which already exists to some extent in most regions. In rural areas, the low density of mobile users means that there may be capacity for FWA users in the spectrum currently owned by mobile network operators.

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Macrocell FWA uses shared media with limited total capacity (spectrum) for end-user connections, so during peak hours each user's download speed may be limited by the number of other venues using the service at the same time. In the absence of existing infrastructure, it is hardly economically feasible to expand a macrocellular network simply by adding FWA.

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Los Angeles FWA

LOS FWA technology uses short-range high-frequency wireless connections to provide connectivity to end-user premises over unlicensed or lightly licensed spectrum (eg, 5.8GHz, 60GHz). Technical standards include WiGig and other vendor-proprietary solutions. LOS FWA local access points are typically connected via fiber optic backhaul. LOS FWA is like a compromise between FTTP and macro FWA. It offers better performance than macrocellular FWA (100Mbit/s) and is generally less expensive than FTTP connections because part of the connection is provided over the air.

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Similar to macro FWA, all venues with LOS FWA share the available bandwidth of the spectrum deployed at the local access point. Also, as the name implies, LOS FWA requires line of sight, which adds complexity and cost to deployment; buildings and trees block the signal, and rain degrades performance. Each client receiving device must be aligned with the local access point. The design of the LOS FWA network is critical to avoid objects that could block the signal and to ensure that capacity is not shared by too many venues at any one time. In very low-density areas, local access points may serve few customer sites, driving up the cost per site served.

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Geostationary Orbit Satellite

GEO satellites are fixed in the sky, large (about 5 tons), and long-lived (about 15 years). In many cases, GEO broadband solutions can take advantage of already launched communication satellites. Provides connection for a fixed receive antenna, called a Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT), which is mounted outside the user's premises and connected to the internal modem via coaxial cable.

GEO solutions are attractive because they can cover almost any location without the need for additional ground backhaul equipment.

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However, one of the main limitations of GEO satellites is their location; 36 000 km above the Earth's surface. This results in high latency in broadband services compared to other broadband technologies, which impacts the customer experience on certain applications. The capacity of each satellite is also shared by many users and use cases. This constraint is often managed by placing caps on customers' data consumption or download speeds.

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LEO Satellite

LEO satellites move relative to the Earth's surface, are smaller and have a shorter lifespan (approximately 5 years) than GEO satellites (approximately 50-800 kg). Providers include OneWeb and Starlink, both of which plan to provide global coverage within the next few years. LEO provides better throughput and lower latency than GEO. LEO providers claim they will deliver 200Mbit/s or better download performance.

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Because the satellites are moving, the customer's receiver equipment needs to be more complex than GEO's receiver equipment. There are two main technology options for consumer antennas:

A mechanical system (including parabolic dish, radome, motor, etc.) that physically moves to track passing satellites.

Electronically Scanned Array (ESA) antenna that tracks moving satellites without physical movement. This complexity means that providing receivers is expensive and can pass a lot of the cost on to the end user (although costs are falling).

LEO still has some limitations in terms of latency compared to terrestrial networks (but GEO satellites have a bigger problem).

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HAPS

HAPS involves airborne vehicles that provide connectivity from high in the Earth's atmosphere. This can be achieved by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), balloons or airships. The height of the platform can vary from a few hundred meters to several kilometers. The HAPS and its payload need to remain in roughly the same position relative to the ground to provide consistent coverage. There have been some well-publicized trials of HAPS solutions, but the technology and business model have not reached a point where they can be deployed commercially.

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In Conclusion

Each technique has its advantages and disadvantages. All of this has serious cost implications for rural areas, requiring government subsidies in some cases. The right technology is the one that provides the required level of performance for most locations at the lowest cost. The right technology choice will vary by country because of different levels of existing broadband coverage, different deployment costs, and different levels of government funding. In many cases, multiple technologies are required to provide the best solution.

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FCST - Better FTTx, Better Life.

We have been designing, manufacturing and supplying passive components for fiber optical networks since 2003. Everything we do in FCST is designed to provide efficient, simple and innovative solutions to solve complicated tasks.

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