PRESS RELEASE: As a young boy, Lucas was raised on a farm in a small village 100 km from Bogotá, capital of Colombia. Now at college, Lucas lives like every other student, using mobile phones for all social interactions. When he returned to his hometown for the holidays, he found himself living in near-isolation as he could no longer contact with his friends or classmates. Naturally, Lucas was surprised when one day his phone began receiving many messages. Unbeknownst to him, his village is connected through RuralLink, which Huawei has specially provided to drive rural coverage in emerging markets like Colombia.

Why Were There No Mobile Networks?

“Why didn’t we have base stations here?” Lucas asked the village head in puzzle.

“Our village has a small population, and we do not have optical fiber or stable electricity. So, nobody wants to take 1–2 months to build a network and then wait for another 10 years to recover the costs, right?”

The RuralLink site was deployed on the hillside of the village. The head went on saying, “Within a week ago, we saw people dig holes there and put up a pole where a tiny box and some panels were then bundled onto it.” This pole is actually a base station of RuralLink that provides Lucas’s phone with full signal and bridges him to his friends in the city.

Connecting Every Village in Colombia

Lucas was not alone in feeling isolated. There are an estimated 12,000 villages located in remote rural areas throughout this country, 70% of which do not have mobile network access. Due to the awful transportation and electricity availability in these areas, operators have to spend much more than urban projects just to set up a network, or lease satellite links to provide mobile services. Each village averages under 1,000 people, and whose spend is less than half of that of their counterparts in cities, so it would take operators much longer to get a return on their investments. But the lack of internet coverage was a major problem for the Colombian government, who then initiated a digital inclusive plan that aims to bring mobile networks to rural areas. One major reason for this realization was the benefits brought by Huawei’s innovative RuralLink solution.

This plan is called “The Digital Future Belongs to Everyone”, put in place to bridge the digital divide across this country. According to this plan, operators are encouraged to deploy mobile networks in rural areas in return for a 60% deduction of the 700 MHz spectrum acquisition fees.

For those participating in this plan, RuralLink is a budget-friendly offering. Since it supports the microwave fronthaul, for the first time, a rural site can use baseband of existing base stations, and only one RRU and one antenna to support three sectors. This is called 1 plus 1 equals 3. This innovative design can reduce the number of devices by 60% and site-wide power consumption 40%. In this way, the site can be purely solar-powered.

By 2022, over 500 rural sites have been put up in Colombia, enabling hundreds of thousands of rural areas to leap into the digital world.

Similar cases can be found in many other countries across Latin America: in Brazil, the Internet penetration rate in rural areas is about 34%, compared with 65% in urban areas, which is why the Brazil government mandated universal coverage as one of operators’ priorities during 5G spectrum auction, to encourage coverage in rural areas and roads; while in Mexico, 30 billion pesos (US$1.5 billion) are earmarked in 2022 to provide 4G networks based on 700 MHz for over 100,000 poorly-connected villages, with further plans to provide 100% universal mobile services for its 25 million population.

Lighting up Latin America with Inclusive Connectivity

The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSMA) reported in 2021 that 45% of the world’s population have no mobile Internet connection. This is especially true in Latin America, where this number stands at 65% together with more than 3% that is completely not covered. Governments in this region have put forward long-term plans, with special funds allocated for universal coverage, mostly based on high-quality 700 MHz bands, to enable better mobile broadband (MBB) services in rural areas. Modern base station solutions, like Huawei’s RuralLink, adopt the trends of green, simplified sites, and smooth evolution to 5G, and this will inject a new boost to accelerating rural network deployments.

Let RuralLink proliferate across Latin America with mobile connectivity shining everywhere across all villages.

Learn more at: https://youtu.be/rbeQle77E9o