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StoriesPlace: Rural village

A village at the end of the line

Where the fibre ends, a single mast, a satellite terminal and a handful of sensors decide whether a village is on the map of observation. Canada’s target is high-speed access for every household by 20301.

Systems
Fixed wireless access, Satellite backhaul, Community sensing
Toward 2030
Universal access targets for 2030
Figures
3, comparison, simulator, timeline to 2030

Go to the references

01Comparison

Before and after a community mast.

Today the village has a satellite dish on one roof and no shared network. With one mast on the hill, a fixed wireless cell can serve every house in line of sight, a weather station and soil probes can report through it, and the satellite link becomes the backhaul for all of them.

Move the divider to compare the two states of the same place.

Figure as text: The same village, without and with a community mast

A split view of a village of a dozen houses. On the left, one satellite terminal on a single house. On the right, a mast on the rise with links to houses, a weather station and a satellite terminal.

Today: one dish, no shared network
One household has satellite broadband; nothing is measured locally.
With a community mast
A 30 m mast serves the village by fixed wireless, carries the sensors’ gateway and uses the satellite terminal as backhaul.

02Simulator

Low bands reach further.

At 700 MHz with open country between the mast and the houses, the path-loss exponent is closer to free space and a single site can cover kilometres; the radio horizon of a 30 m mast then becomes the limit2. That is why rural coverage leans on low bands and tall masts.

Figure as text: Rural cell radius at a low band

A plan drawing of one rural site: the budget range far exceeds the radio horizon, so the usable radius in red equals the horizon.

Rural cell radius at a low band, at the starting values
Frequency700 MHz
Transmit EIRP58 dBm
Receiver sensitivity-105 dBm
Path loss exponent2.6
Mast height30 m
Range the budget closes57.0 km
Radio horizon at 1.5 m27.6 km
Usable cell radius27.6 km
Sites per 100 km²1
Free-space loss at that radius118.2 dB

03Timeline to 2030

The 2030 line.

Canada’s regulator set 50 Mbit/s down and 10 Mbit/s up as the basic service objective in 20163; the national strategy aims at every household by 20301. The European Union’s 2030 programme asks for gigabit connectivity for all and 5G in every populated area4.

Figure as text: Universal access commitments to 2030

A timeline from 2016 to 2030 with Canadian and European connectivity commitments.

  1. 2016-12 Basic service objective set (CRTC 2016-496). 50 Mbit/s download and 10 Mbit/s upload, with an unlimited data option.3
  2. 2019-06 National connectivity strategy. High-speed access for all Canadians, with universal coverage by 2030.1
  3. 2022-12 Digital Decade targets adopted (Decision (EU) 2022/2481). Gigabit for all households and 5G in all populated areas by 2030.4
  4. 2030 Universal access target. Every household at the basic service objective or better.1
  5. 2030 Digital Decade deadline. Gigabit and 5G coverage targets fall due.4

Today: one dish, no shared network

With a community mast

Figure 1

Comparison

With a community mast: Radio horizon of the mast
29.7 km

Figure 1. The same village, without and with a community mast. A split view of a village of a dozen houses. On the left, one satellite terminal on a single house. On the right, a mast on the rise with links to houses, a weather station and a satellite terminal.

References

  1. High-Speed Access for All: Canada’s Connectivity Strategy. Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, 2019.
  2. Recommendation ITU-R P.453: The radio refractive index (effective Earth radius factor k = 4/3). International Telecommunication Union, Radiocommunication Sector, 2019.
  3. Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2016-496: Modern telecommunications services, the path forward for Canada’s digital economy. Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, 2016.
  4. Decision (EU) 2022/2481 establishing the Digital Decade Policy Programme 2030. Official Journal of the European Union, 2022.

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