Having consistent internet coverage in an area is essential to enabling today’s communities to grow. Individuals and businesses alike depend on being able to access different websites, social media platforms, and online resources not just to maintain relationships, but also to explore educational and business opportunities. Furthermore, government services necessary to improve an area can work more effectively with quick access to incoming and outgoing information.
While providing internet coverage in an area is not a problem in most cities, it’s a totally different story when it comes to communities located in remote areas. Bringing internet connectivity somewhere far from major towns often requires resources that remote communities do not have. Fortunately, such communities can find a viable alternative in the form of rural wireless broadband technologies.
What is Wireless Broadband?
Wireless broadband is a technology that serves as an alternative to ADSL and fiber optic broadband internet, which is commonly used for residential and commercial purposes. Instead of utilizing telephone wires to transmit data, wireless broadband uses routers that convert data to radio signals, which are then transmitted to base stations. The base station also uses the same method to send data to the router, which is then relayed to the devices connected to the local area network.
Just the fact that wireless broadband technology does not need to use phone lines to function properly gives it plenty of advantages over wired internet options, thus making it a more viable option for people living in remote communities. Here’s a quick rundown of its benefits:
More Affordable Deployment
– Establishing a wired network in a remote community will cost a lot. The investment in wiring and hardware necessary to erect line posts over a span of many miles may be too much for both the community and any service provider to afford.
Because wireless broadband only needs strategically-placed base stations, overall installation costs may prove more cost-efficient in the long run. Once finished, the only thing the base station needs to function is to connect to a power source, which is more readily available than existing phone lines.
Faster Installation Times –
Aside from requiring a lot of resources, establishing wired internet coverage for remote communities can take up a lot of time. Reaching out to a remote community can take months or even years depending on challenges related to the location and the community’s available resources.
A single base station may also take a while to erect, but you have to keep in mind that the sheer number of posts and amount of wiring that have to be put up greatly increases installation times for the wired option. On the contrary, once the base station is installed, there’s not much else left to do, save for deploying routers to individual users in a community.
Fewer Geographical Restrictions –
For some remote communities, wired internet options are simply not viable. This could be because they are located in areas where trenching or putting up a network of posts is either very expensive or nearly impossible. This is especially true for communities in mountainous terrain or across bodies of water.
Finding enough suitable construction space for setting up a base station is a lot easier than finding an alternative path for laying down a network of posts and miles of expensive wiring. As such, wireless broadband tend to be the best solution available for all but the most isolated communities.
Wireless broadband technologies have reached a point where it’s almost impossible to tell the difference in performance between wired and wireless solutions. With so much versatility and barely any downside, this cost-effective alternative to conventional internet could help accelerate the development of remote communities.
