Expanding rural broadband has become an urgent priority across the country. Limited access to high-speed internet in rural communities isn’t just an inconvenience or a hurdle to streaming the latest series on Netflix — it’s a barrier to economic growth, education, health care access and much more.
Many rural communities struggle with basic connectivity, which affects the ability to work from home, access online education, benefit from telehealth services, and even manage agricultural or other operations with modern technology.
Telecommunications providers looking to bridge the broadband divide in communities and expand into rural areas face a litany of challenges. The most significant barrier is often the high cost of deployment, which is exacerbated by low population density. Unlike urban environments, where a single project can serve many customers and utilize existing infrastructure, rural projects often involve substantial investment for a much smaller return. The “last mile” problem is particularly difficult in rural settings, where mountains, forests and the absence of existing infrastructure require telecommunications companies to build from the ground up. This not only increases the cost but also extends the timeline.
The longstanding barrier of high costs is becoming less of a problem thanks to federal funding initiatives such as the Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program, under the $65 billion Congress approved in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). Such funding is helping to overcome the financial and logistical hurdles by providing a much-needed incentive for telecommunications companies to invest in sustainable, future-proof networks that will serve rural communities for decades to come. As companies look to tap into such funding, the focus can now shift from overcoming the initial cost barriers to planning and building communication networks that can grow and evolve with future demands.
Deploying fiber networks is not new. It has been occurring across the country for over 20 years. The advantage of fiber deployment today, is that we can learn from the mistakes of the past. To fulfill the obligations inherent in receiving public funding, it can be tempting to focus on the short-term needs of the front-end activities needed to get fiber into the ground or on poles as quickly as possible. But, here is where organizations run the risk of neglecting the importance of the digital records associated with what is happening in the real world. Utilizing disparate data sources, such as CAD files or spreadsheets, during the design and construction can expedite the build in the short term, but they will not meaningfully support operating and maintaining the network. Those records will need to be accumulated and converted into an operational solution, often months after the fact, during which time those digital records may have changed and are no longer accurate to the real world. Furthermore, ongoing construction and maintenance activities will continue the cycle of data discrepancy because “that’s how it’s always been done”.
Without a current and timely record of what is deployed, companies cannot react to outages, plan for changes or turn up new customers without additional delays and lost revenue while they verify the field records.
With public funding as a primary source of rural broadband initiatives, it is critical that the long-term needs such as operations and maintenance are are also a front-end concern. This is where adopting advanced digital tools that optimize every stage of the process — from planning, design and construction to operations and maintenance — comes in.
By focusing on long-term solutions, companies can ensure that this investment in rural broadband networks will continue to meet growing demands over time, avoiding the need for costly upgrades in the near future.
For example, ensuring the creation of a location-based digital system of record of the entire network at the beginning of a fiber deployment allows a telco to accurately plan capacity and usage, track asset locations, connectivity and construction status and to maintain and operate the network from the moment the first fiber is lit. This digital system of record approach makes it easier to monitor and maintain assets by utilizing real-time data from a single source of truth. The goal is to create a highly accurate, data-fueled network designed for future growth, ensuring rural broadband remains resilient and adaptable. The model allows the network to evolve and take advantage of newer technologies, that will allow for faster speeds and more services, without the need for a large capital rebuild expense.
Additionally, telcos should look to incorporate modern low-code mobile technologies that allow field teams to access and keep current the planned, as-built and operational changes to the network, thereby creating efficiencies for workers in rural areas doing installations or repairs. Fiber optics can be incredibly complex due to the number of interconnections and multiplexing, so the traditional practice of utilizing extracted data sets for field crews carries a high likelihood for data to get out of sync between the digital system of record and what’s happening on the ground. Mobile technologies must be easy to use and come with real-time synchronization to minimize the risk of such discrepancies. As changes are made during network construction or maintenance, they should immediately be reflected in the digital system of record, reducing the likelihood of costly data errors that could impact efficiency, reliability and profitability.
For telecommunications companies, successful rural broadband expansion requires strategic planning and the smart use of innovative technologies featuring real-time data. By leveraging these innovative technologies, companies can overcome the obstacles that have traditionally slowed rural broadband deployment and ensure its ongoing viability as the demand for speed and data grows. With billions of dollars in federal funding now being allocated to state agencies, investing in a system that focuses on reducing long-term costs is more important than ever. Companies must act as good stewards of these resources and maximize the impact of taxpayer dollars by investing in the future. By doing so, they can also help close the rural broadband gap and ensure these communities are not left behind.
