Because of low potential revenue, network operators have mainly focused on providing connectivity in urban areas rather than in rural areas resulting in technology improvement in favour of urban areas; and consequently, most of remote areas suffer from poor or lack of connectivity. In this paper, we present the potential of massive-MIMO to provide connectivity to sparse areas. We show that we can cover large rural areas with radius of tens of km using massive-MIMO mounted on existing infrastructure of TV towers. We also show that, in contrast with common belief, higher frequencies, e.g., 3500 MHz rather than 700 MHz, can reach farther utilizing massive-MIMO, provided that the antenna area is the same.

中文翻译：

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电视塔上大规模MIMO的蜂​​窝覆盖范围扩展潜力

由于潜在收入较低，网络运营商主要致力于在城市地区而不是在农村地区提供连接，从而导致有利于城市地区的技术进步；因此，大多数偏远地区的连通性很差或缺乏。在本文中，我们展示了大规模MIMO的潜力，可提供到稀疏区域的连接。我们表明，使用安装在电视塔现有基础设施上的大规模MIMO，我们可以覆盖半径数十公里的广大农村地区。我们还表明，与通常的看法相反，如果天线面积相同，则更高的频率（例如3500 MHz而不是700 MHz）可以利用大规模MIMO到达更远的地方。