More than 250 small towns and villages at risk of being left behind in the digital revolution are to get next-generation full-fibre broadband over the next three years.

Millions of homes and businesses located in rural areas, from the Scottish Highlands to the Welsh valleys, have suffered from poor internet service because providers have been reluctant to build faster networks due to prohibitive costs and low economic returns. Telecoms regulator Ofcom estimates that there are about 9.6m homes and businesses situated in this so-called “final third” of the country.

BT subsidiary Openreach has unveiled plans to guarantee to build full-fibre broadband to 3.2m premises in these hard to reach locations over the next three years. Locations on the list include Thurso in the far north of Scotland, Aberystwyth on Cardigan Bay in Wales and Lingfield in Surrey. 

“This commitment will provide a great economic boost for rural areas, where it is clear connectivity has traditionally lagged behind more urban areas,” said Tim Bonner, chief executive of the Countryside Alliance. “As we have seen during the Covid-19 pandemic, digital connectivity has been essential for the millions who are home schooling and working from home.”

Small towns and rural areas across the UK will be hardest hit by delays of up to three years in the rollout of 5G mobile technology, experts have said after ministers announced that Huawei will be stripped from networks by 2027.

The total cost to the economy could exceed £7bn, according to research analysing the potential cost of eliminating the Chinese equipment supplier in response to US sanctions and pressure from about 60 rebel Tory MPs.

The Huawei dispute is only one part of a wider UK-China struggle

Oliver Dowden, the culture secretary, announced a U-turn on the role of Huawei in 5G networks on Tuesday, earning criticism from China and praise from the US, who said the company poses a threat to national security.

China’s ambassador to the UK branded the decision “disappointing and wrong”. Liu Xiaoming tweeted: “It has become questionable whether the UK can provide an open, fair and non-discriminatory business environment for companies from other countries.”

The rollout of 5G mobile networks in Europe will “certainly be delayed” by the coronavirus outbreak, Huawei says.

The Chinese company is one of the major manufacturers of essential equipment for 5G networks.

Huawei said continuing the 5G rollout was the best way to ensure connectivity during the crisis.

But senior executive Eric Xu also told reporters the delays could last until “the time when the pandemic is brought under control”.

Answering questions about its annual report, published on Tuesday, Huawei vice-president Victor Zhang said there would “definitely” be an impact but it would not be as significant in the UK as the rest of Europe.

The first priority was to ensure the existing network was reliable, as people were using it to work, entertain and learn from home, he said.

But given the demand for bandwidth and better coverage, “the quickest way is to use the 5G deployment”.

“We need to accelerate the network bandwidth… to make sure everyone can work and can entertain and can share information,” he said.

Mr Zhang pointed to rural areas in particular, where existing mobile broadband coverage “is not good enough” to support people working from home.

The UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, is today reportedly gearing up to announce a fresh round of new capital investment in major infrastructure projects (HS2 etc.), which is expected to include a pot of £40 million to support pilots of superfast 5G based wireless (mobile) broadband in rural areas.

At this point readers may recall that the Prime Minister has already committed to invest £5bn in order to have “Gigabit broadband sprouting in every home” by the end of 2025 (here). The funding is to be targeted exclusively at the final 20% of hardest to reach premises (i.e. mostly rural areas and possibly some disadvantaged urban locations).

The adoption of “gigabit” terminology has also enabled the Government to water down their original focus on “full fibre” by including other “gigabit-capable” technologies (here), such as Virgin Media’s predominantly hybrid fibre coax network and ultrafast 5G mobile services have also been mentioned as examples.

On top of that we shouldn’t forget about the Government’s original 5G Testbeds and Trials Programme in 2018, which also included some rural broadband projects. On the other hand that programme confusingly included some fixed wireless deployments that weren’t actually using 5G New Radio technology at all, despite adopting the terminology and some similar radio bands.

The big challenge with using 5G in any rural setting is the fact that in a normal mobile environment the operators’ tend to focus on lower frequency mobile bands (e.g. 700MHz, 800MHZ, 900MHz, 1800MHz and 2100MHz) in order to achieve the widest possible coverage at the lowest cost (rural communities are small and sparse over a wide geographic area).

Sadly such bands don’t provide operators with much frequency spectrum in order to deliver their data, which makes achieving Gigabit speeds rather difficult. By comparison the higher frequency 5G bands, such as from 3.4GHz and upwards, provide a lot more spectrum to deliver data but their signals don’t travel as far and will struggle to penetrate indoors in any meaningful way.

Due to the above we suspect that the new pilots will most likely focus on targeted Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) style solutions, which – much like under the previous programme – may or may not actually involve real 5G New Radio tech. In these setups it’s not uncommon to mix targetted “Full Fibre” or Microwave capacity links with local Line-of-Sight (LoS) wireless links that connect directly to receiving antennas installed outside of a home.

Bigger and taller mobile phone masts could be built without councils’ permission across the countryside, under a proposed overhaul of planning rules in England.

It is part of government plans to speed up the roll out of 5G networks and improve mobile coverage in rural areas.

Currently masts on public land must be no more than 25m (82ft) high but ministers want to relax these rules.

Labour says “bolder” plans are needed to boost the UK digital infrastructure.

5G, which uses higher frequency waves than earlier mobile networks, would allow more devices to have access to the internet at the same time and at faster speeds.

However, 5G networks require more transmitter masts than previous technologies.

Digital Secretary Nicky Morgan, who has launched a consultation on the plans, said “slightly taller” masts would mean they could carry more equipment and “potentially stop the proliferation of other masts – or even take away some”.

Asked if new masts could double in height, she said “Let’s ask the question and see what it is people need.”

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme there has to be a balance struck between the landscape and better connectivity.

5G networks are starting to pop up in UK cities – but for many rural areas even getting a basic mobile signal remains a challenge.

This was certainly the case in the Orkney Islands, an archipelago of 70 islands off the north coast of Scotland.

Its population of 22,000 is spread across 20 of these islands and has consistently ranked as one of the most under-connected in the country.

But this could be about to change.

The 5G Rural First project, a consortium of more than 30 organisations, has been running trials with local businesses, using bespoke 5G networks, for the past 18 months.

Now, a landmark decision from Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, means these trials could become reality sooner that anticipated.

The regulator says it is opening up unused parts of the airwaves, also known as spectrum, to rural communities.

The unused spectrum is mostly owned by mobile phone companies but will now be sold to anyone who identifies a legitimate use for it.

It will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis, with bids being accepted towards the end of the year.

If accepted, the bidder will have to cover costs only, which Ofcom says could be as low as £85 for a business wanting to create its own local network.

Ofcom is to give businesses and rural communities the opportunity to build bespoke mobile networks by releasing licensed but unused spectrum on a local basis.

The regulator is inviting applications for the 1800MHz and 2300MHz bands currently used for mobile services, the 3.4-3.8GHz band used for 5G, and the 26GHz millimetre-wave (mmWave) band earmarked for high capacity 5G services.

Although mobile operators hold licenses to some of these airwaves, they do not make use of them in parts of the country. Where an operator is not making use of the spectrum, Ofcom wants to see the potential realised.

Ofcom believes spectrum sharing could allow manufacturers to create private networks for connected factories, farmers to build local networks across large sites to connect people and machinery – enabling the Internet of Things (IOT) – and business and holiday parks to improve connectivity.

It would also pave the way for rural areas not covered by the commercial rollout of 4G and 5G to build local networks for residents.

Any party wanting to take advantage of the new regulations needs to submit an application to Ofcom with details of the band, location, bandwidth and power required. Ofcom will then assess the potential for interference with other users of the spectrum and grant a licence based on a per-area or per-base station basis.

Ofcom is looking at other ways to improve rural coverage. If a reported deal between government and mobile operators to build masts in rural areas is not reached, then Ofcom plans to offer discounted 5G spectrum in exchange for coverage obligations at the next auction of airwaves.

According to the regulator’s Connected Nations 2018 report, almost all properties can receive a good indoor 4G signal from at least one operator while 77 per cent are covered by all four major networks – EE, O2, Three and Vodafone – up from 65 per cent last year.

However, while 83 per cent of urban premises receive what could be classified as “good” coverage, only 41 per cent of rural properties do, and in some areas there is no coverage at all.

Many 5G testbeds are focused on urban locations, but Cisco has another focus, as it’s the lead on 5G RuralFirst, a government-funded testbed which will explore the potential of 5G in rural locations.

The project will aim to create a complete end-to-end 5G testbed system, with an overall goal of making sure 5G connectivity is affordable and accessible in rural, often out of the way locations.

Testbeds and trials for 5G RuralFirst will primarily be found in Shropshire, Somerset and the Orkney islands, and various specific 5G use cases will be looked at, including smart farming, such as with the use of autonomous vehicles and remote diagnostics.

Other use cases that will make up part of the 5G RuralFirst trials include broadcast radio over 5G, Internet of Things (IoT) use in environment management and utilities, and dynamic shared spectrum development and trials, which could help lower the cost of rural 5G communications deployment.

Making a case

There’s a strong case for carrying out these rural 5G trials, as Ofcom reports that only 63% of the UK has mobile data coverage from all of the four main networks, with it mostly being rural locations which go without, so they’re in serious need of an upgrade.

Not only that, but it could make financial sense to invest in rural 5G services too, as according to Cisco, rural communities represent tens of billions of pounds’ worth of opportunity for the UK economy. That’s perhaps unsurprising when you consider that 72% of the UK’s area is used for agricultural production.