Rural Communications Infrastructure: Options to improve rural connectivity and harness opportunities that this creates

High-speed rural connectivity all around the world is a common problem. In Australia, for instance, it is not uncommon for rural areas to be only serviced by 3G or satellite services that operate consistently below 1 mbps in download speed. Other remote and rural areas around the
world largely remain unconnected to the Internet as they face challenges of attracting private sector investment (Kawasumi 2014). The current state of download speeds vary from location to location due to a multitude of factors some of which are determined by population density, landscape, access to infrastructure and their political situation. Identifying the current state of internet services locally and abroad will give us a good basis on which new technologies can
dramatically improve their situation.