The digital divide between rural and urban areas is vast and growing, with many rural and remote communities still being left behind due to a lack of access to basic services. These are services that many of us take for granted, and rely on, on a daily basis.

According to a 2023 Vodafone UK study, 46% of deprived rural areas are classed as ‘5G notspots’ compared to just 2.7% of their urban counterparts. In the most remote areas of Wales, that rises to almost 60%.

This is not just about being able to get phone signal in the countryside, though. It is about opening up opportunities for economic growth, more sustainable transport systems, equal access to healthcare and strategies that support tourism – all things that underpin and enhance urban areas.

I was reminded of this stark digital divide at a conference I attended at the end of 2024, hosted by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and Industry Wales. While the focus was on founding connecting urban and rural communities in Wales, the themes should resonate with rural communities and place managers across the UK.

The challenges are clear – the physicalities of the landscape, infrastructure, planning, age and population spread – but so too are the opportunities for transformation. Not only through that fundamental base layer of connectivity, but through innovation that makes places distinct and unique.

Reflecting on the conference, this article will explore digital inclusion and regeneration in rural communities, and some of the emerging solutions that are showing potential to help bridge the divide.

Current landscape and infrastructure

Connectivity has been on the UK government’s agenda increasingly in recent years. The previous Conservative government launched two multi-billion pound projects to expand 4G coverage to reach 95% of the UK by the end of 2025 and bring 1Gbps broadband speeds to at least 85% of the UK. Now, the new Labour government has pledged a further £500m for broadband and mobile expansion across the UK, including rural areas.

Slow progress can be attributed to myriad complex factors related to rural areas – vast and hilly landscapes, private and protected land, agriculture and regulation, etc – but it is encouraging to see momentum in investment and debate. 

Topography is a major challenge, as discussed by Mott MacDonald’s technical director of urban regeneration, Brendon Baker, at the IMechE conference. To create new place-based infrastructure today, you need triple access planning (TAP), which is different from traditional transport planning.

TAP is a newer, holistic approach to planning which involves giving equal weight to physical mobility, spatial proximity and digital connectivity – and ensuring people/communities have equal access to them. You can see how this might be complicated for remote areas.

Tuscany is often cited as a best practice example of rural connectivity, and was a point for discussion at the conference. Back in 2021, the region received a substantial €1bn investment from the Italian government to provide remote villages with high-speed internet. This was to enable increased remote working, attract people to relocate to these areas and make it possible to host company headquarters – all geared at supporting the local economy in the wake of the pandemic.

Given the similarities in landscape, there seem to be clear opportunities for Wales to learn from Tuscany’s digital transformation project. There is no reason other rural areas can’t look to adapt and apply some of those key project learnings and successes.

Satellites and sensors

One promising area of innovation is in satellite- and sensor-driven connectivity, which are increasingly being used to connect rural industries. The UK Space Agency  announced a £3.5m funding call to test hybrid connectivity solutions in rural areas at the end of last year. One of these pilot projects will install internet-powered terminals on vehicles to improve connectivity for local authorities, farmers, emergency services, events and tourism.

“Digital infrastructure is essential for our modern way of life,” Telecoms Minister Chris Bryant said at the time. “…We must do whatever it takes to ensure we harness technological innovation to enrich people’s lives and tackle exclusion, rather than entrench existing inequalities.”

Innovations such as Starlink and LoRaWAN are promising greater inclusion for rural communities – as was highlighted by Peter Williams from the digital infrastructure team at the Welsh Government.

Starlink is the satellite internet constellation owned by Elon Musk’s Space X, of which Wales was one of the first places in the world to have access to. Around 7,000 of these satellites have been launched to date, with the mission to provide global internet coverage.

LoRaWAN, meanwhile, is a low-power network that connects sensor devices and applications to the internet. Able to send data over long distances, it is designed for large-scale IoT projects and, as such, increasingly being used in industrial spaces and smart cities. It feels like a no-brainer that we should be using this technology to make rural areas ‘smarter’ too. 

Transport and environment

In the countryside there is often a disconnect between transport systems, further disconnecting the citizens who live there – both from rural and urban communities. This has informed a major campaign by Industry Wales, whose CEO Jen Baxter was at the conference to explore how Wales can bridge the urban-rural divide. 

In addition to campaigning for greater rural connectivity to join up road, rail, greenways and paths, Industry Wales is using its voice to call for more investment in tech and infrastructure solutions to boost growth. This has the potential to revolutionise carbon capture and storage and net zero energy transport systems in the area.

Elsewhere, there was a recognition of the need for real-time flood monitoring to provide people with more localised information. Safety is one of the main reasons for this – especially after all the flooding the UK experienced in 2024 – but agriculture could also benefit from it immensely. 

For example, predictive weather analytics tools that can support crop maintenance throughout the UK’s increasingly unpredictable seasons. Or innovation in smart, autonomous vehicles and equipment, such as agricultural drones or tractors that can collect and analyse data via a smartphone. These technologies are environmentally-friendly, more efficient and can boost productivity. 

Additional environmental benefits of connectivity can be seen in projects like the 5G Connected Forest at Sherwood Forest. By making 5G signals available in a woodland setting, they have been able to introduce robotic environmental management and live monitoring to maintain forest health. Scaling this up in a remote countryside setting could have massive implications for wildlife and nature.

Health and education

Given the remoteness and low population density of rural areas, it is widely recognised that many communities are disadvantaged when it comes to education and healthcare.

For instance, some rural areas cannot get teachers at the same scale as bigger institutions or cities, which has a significant impact on both pupils and schools. For pupils, digital technologies can enable remote learning to support educational development and prepare them for future careers; for schools, they can ease the burden of staff shortages.

Equally, connectivity can provide genuinely lifesaving care and advice to isolated citizens – not only through remote appointments, but also self-monitoring technologies, such as systems that learn people’s routines and sensors that can monitor carbon dioxide levels.

This is not to say digital technologies can replace real people; but these services and applications can support many people to take care of themselves better and live more independent lives. It is one of the driving reasons behind Ambition North Wales’ ‘Connectivity Clinics’, which offer free advice and guidance on getting reliable and fast internet access. The overarching aim of the project is to reduce the risk of social isolation for vulnerable people.

Digital strategies for culture

In our current world, where nearly all UK adults between 16 and 54 own a smartphone, it was wholly agreed at the conference that there needs to be a digital placemaking strategy to go alongside traditional town planning strategies. This is key to ensuring physical and digital services are integrated seamlessly (transport, for example), but also for enhancing people’s experiences of places, such as through storytelling or providing local information.

It is important to consider why people are where they are geographically. For many rural citizens, it is likely due to previous industrial revolutions – mining, textile weaving, sheep farming, etc – and digital storytelling has a role to play in bringing heritage to life and making places less homogenous.

We have evidence that digital placemaking is key to successful urban regeneration, offering a tool to boost the social, cultural and economic prosperity of a location. So it makes sense that it could have an equally transformative role to place in rural regeneration – once the infrastructure is in place. Ideascape in Cardiff’s Porth Teigr is a great example of this, showing the power of community engagement and co-creation when regenerating places.

In this sense, towns or rural villages can become centres of excellence in new forms of craft, founded on smart city infrastructure and run as a place-based co-operative. For example, creating a testbed village for showcasing interactive street furniture products. The possibilities are many – it just requires a bit of imagination (and investment).

Final thoughts

As the digital divide is at risk of widening, it feels more pressing than ever to harness connectivity to ensure rural communities have the same opportunities – and quality of life – as their urban counterparts.

For a digital strategy to be successful, the wants and needs of communities must be listened to and considered before applying the technology. This means local governments, public bodies and tech companies have an equal role to play in ensuring a whole system approach – one that is sustainable and does not cause negative disruption.

Taking everything into account, I am hopeful 2025 will lay more of the foundations needed to co-design and co-create a more inclusive future for rural communities. Calvium is certainly committed to playing our part.