Is there any new trend or new innovations in the rural broadband markets?

Globally, the refarming of radio spectrum, largely driven by the switch from analog to digital TV, has resulted in new, lower frequency bands becoming available to network operators. Lower frequency bands allows greater coverage of rural areas as well as better penetration of signals into buildings. In other words, lower frequency bands allow better quality high speed services in rural areas and indoors. However, this is only part of why frequency refarming will have a significant impact on the market in the next few years.

Give an example?

The 700 MHz (megahertz) band is a case in point. Initially adopted by a few MNOs across Asia/Pacific, its adoption has now reached European and even some North American operators. It is now being promoted as having the potential to become the first globally adopted LTE spectrum. If this does indeed happen, it would significantly drive down the cost of building high speed 4G LTE equipment, due to economies of scale.

Currently hardware must be built to accommodate the different frequency bands adopted by different countries around the world. It is not widely known that for every globally available mobile phone product on the market, the hardware vendor has to build many country/region specific variants to accommodate the locally deployed frequencies.  The new LTE spectrum will lead to a much greater penetration of broadband services not only in rural broadband markets, but also in cost sensitive developing markets.

What are you seeing in the rural broadband markets?

Customers based at the edge of the mobile and fixed wire networks expect the same level of broadband service as their city cousins are getting. Access to fast and reliable broadband is critical for enabling a diverse range of applications, from telemedicine for retirees to teleworking for those who are still of working age.

Urbanization trends will continue unabated until global network operators can offer technology based solutions which bring the benefits of the city to the regional towns and rural communities – access to doctors and specialists, educational institutions and careers.