It is common knowledge that internet connectivity brings socio-economic benefits to individuals and communities around the world. For most people who live and work in rural areas, the only means for connecting to the internet is through mobile broadband. But today, there are still roughly 1 billion people who live in areas without access to 3G or 4G services, 40% of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa alone.

The gaps in connectivity represent a missed commercial opportunity for mobile operators. Operators that can quickly build out coverage to remote areas will have the first-mover advantage in winning new customers and increasing market share.

Expanding network coverage to hard to reach areas (where most of the unconnected population live) can be challenging as it requires significant time and investment to build networks in extremely difficult environments (deployments involve costly construction over long distances -- sometimes with difficult terrain and no power facilities -- to serve small communities that will deliver lower traffic volumes).

However, there are efficient, high-performing alternative approaches to closing the connectivity gap, not only in sub-Saharan Africa, but anywhere people live without access to the means to connect.

In this workshop, we will discuss solutions available today for quickly and economically expanding 2G/3G/4G coverage into rural and remote areas considered impractical using traditional cellular backhaul.

We will also introduce our mobility service “FlexMove”, a new end-terminal managed service that makes it easy and affordable for people to connect to the Internet, private data networks and cloud services from virtually anywhere in the world, including while on-the-move, or on-the-pause at a temporary site. Businesses, first responders and humanitarian-aid organizations and can now use this secure, reliable, “always-on” service to stay connected anywhere when the need arises, within the Horn of Africa region and beyond.