# Wireless Connectivity in Rural Areas

- **Language:** EN
- **Published on:** 2019-04-03

### Challenges in Rural Areas

According to a recent OFCOM report, over 1 million people living in the UK do not have access to 10 Mbps download speeds, when the average download speed at the end of 2018 was 17 Mbps – this at a time when consumers and businesses rely on fast connectivity to operate. The UK is not alone; continental European mobile network operators, including Germany, France, Italy, and Denmark, also face identical or similar connectivity challenges. Mobile network operators are beginning to realize that rural communities require larger investments to improve mobile broadband service levels. And in some European countries, local operators are known to effectively guarantee minimum service levels in rural areas where consumers or businesses subscribe to their service. The recent OFCOM report found that rural businesses could receive an overall revenue increase of up to £141 million through 4G implementation, representing a potential boost of £45 million to the UK economy and underlying employment growth of 31%. Increasingly, both mobile network operators and SMEs are realizing that advancements in antenna technology can significantly improve mobile connectivity performance quickly and at a relatively low cost.

### **How important is the antenna?**

One of the main misunderstandings that often recur in the telecommunications world is that the antenna does not make much difference to the performance of a radio system and choosing an antenna is a quick and easy choice.
So, let's look at one of the main reasons why the antenna and the technical performance of the antenna are important for a 3G, or an LTE system, the need for speed ...
The antenna can improve the available RF link budget of a radio communication system by concentrating the available energy in a given direction, commonly known as a directional antenna. The directionality of an antenna can increase the RF link gain over a transmission path by as much as 9-10 dB. When the available RF link gain is increased, this can have a significant effect on the quality of the received signal; this change in quality can increase data speeds along the transmission path.

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Source: https://shop2.marcomweb.it/en/news/wireless-connectivity-in-rural-areas

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