The need for high speed broadband connection in rural areas is inevitable since services like e-governance, virtual classrooms, telemedicine, video-on-demand, home entertainment, etc. are needed. However, in order to provide broadband services, service providers must incur high deployment costs and wait for long time for return on investments. Thus, massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) with its favorable propagation phenomenon can be exploited as an alternative to boost signal coverage in rural areas while providing high speed broadband connection. In this chapter, planning and performance evaluation for massive MIMO network has been conducted for rural areas in Tanzania. Infovista and MATLAB tools were used for network simulation. The results show that massive MIMO network at 5MHz bandwidth performs better in terms of RSRP and SINRu when compared to 10 MHz and 20MHz channel bandwidths.

People in rural areas need high-speed broadband connection for various services, including e-governance, virtual class rooms, telemedicine, video-on-demand, and home entertainment. However, in order to provide broadband services, service providers must incur high deployment costs and should wait for a long time for return on investments. Long-Term Evolution (LTE) has been proposed to overcome high deployment cost, although this technology suffers from poor coverage in rural areas. Thus, massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) with its favorable propagation phenomenon can be exploited as an alternative solution to boost signal coverage in rural areas. The current study compared the performance of broadband networks for Tanzanian rural areas based on massive MIMO technology and LTE. Performance comparison is confined to Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP), User Signal-Interference Noise Ratio (SINRu) and Downlink (DL) throughput metrics for 5 MHz, 10 MHz and 20 MHz channel bandwidths at 2.1 GHz and 700 MHz carrier frequencies. The results show that, in terms of RSRP and SINRu, the performance of massive MIMO network at 5 MHz is higher than that of conventional LTE networks at 10 MHz and 20 MHz. Massive MIMO network performs better at lower channel bandwidth, making it more suitable for deployment in rural areas.