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Innovative digital technologies are increasingly fundamental to agricultural production and sustainability. From a food supply perspective alone, there is an urgent need to optimise farming practices. According to the FAO, the world’s population will grow over a third by 2050. These people will need homes and space to live, so while farms will need to produce 60% more food, they will not be able to expand outwards to do so. Further to this, climate change will add to the strain on other important resources. In essence, farmers will need to produce more, using less: through precision farming.

The European Commission’s 5G Action Plan aims to launch 5G services in all Member States by the end of 2020 as well as ensure uninterrupted 5G coverage in urban areas and along main transport paths by 2025.

The 230 households, farms and small businesses spread out over 44 square kilometres in the remote municipality of Hammikeln, in the German State of North Rhine-Westphalia, felt a great need for high-speed connectivity in order to continue to live and work in the area. The low population density, however, meant that there was no commercial interest from private telecom companies. As a result, the area’s four local communities decided to build their own gigabit-speed fibre network themselves, in partnership with a local utility company.

The Sarantaporo.gr project began when a small group of young people, from the remote Thessaly mountains in central Greece, returned home to realise that their village still had no internet access. Telecom companies had no interest in investing to bring the necessary infrastructure there, so the group set out to create a wireless community network for almost 3,500 people in 12 isolated mountain villages. To stimulate demand and uptake, the project’s volunteers provide training and support. The €156,000 project was 59% EU-funded and won a European Broadband Award in 2019.

In rural communities in Lower Austria, where telecom companies had not invested for 15 years, the State took action, creating a company dedicated to bringing broadband access to over 450,000 people. Vice President of the nöGIG company, Igor Brusic, explained: “Without broadband, the inhabitants and companies are forced to move from these rural areas to urban ones. Investing or building up a financial structure and attracting capital for rural areas is something that makes this project unique”. This project was a finalist in the 2019 European Broadband Awards.

In the German state of Baden-Württemberg, the District of Calw is a rural region encompassing 25 towns over 800 km2 of hills and valleys in the Black Forest. The challenging terrain makes the deployment of broadband cables both complicated and expensive. Many areas in the region are underserved as a result. In 2017, the District began a broadband initiative to connect its 25 communities with a 386 km Next Generation Access (NGA) backbone network, as well as mobile coverage via masts. Both federally and regionally funded, the project reduced costs by re-using existing infrastructure.

The Italian region of Emilia Romagna launched a free public WiFi network with 5000 hotspots across the region’s towns and mountains, with a density of one hotspot for every 1000 people. In an effort to close the digital divide and give all citizens the opportunity to access the internet and online services, hotspots were created in public spaces including sports centres, hospitals, libraries and beaches. The hotspots offer potential speeds of up to 1 Gbps, as each is connected via fibre optic cable.

The Latvian State Radio and Television Centre obtained EU funding in order to bring broadband connectivity to rural areas in Latvia where there was no commercial interest in investing. A passive middle mile backbone network was built, bringing fibre access to a total of 150,000 properties. The project was 85% funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and was a finalist in the 2018 European Broadband Awards.

Emergency situations prove that it is essential for every citizen in Europe to have access to high-speed connectivity. Europe is building up the Gigabit Society in rural and urban areas, enabling teleworking, online access to goods, e-health, e-education and socialising. EU funding supports high-speed broadband projects. You can trigger a broadband project in your area if you are a project promoter, citizens cooperative, public entity or telecom operator. Engage with your nearest Broadband Competence Office.

In the rural Bavarian municipality of Senden, in Germany, citizens formed a cooperative in order to create and invest in their own high-speed broadband network. By teaming up with the local administration and securing investment from telecommunications company Deutsche Glasfaser, they brought 1 Gbps Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) connectivity to over 650 homes and farmsteads. The project revitalised business in the area and helped retain its population.