10032964Last mile broadband for rural UK via Integrated Access BackhaulClosedCollaborative R&DInnovate UKBroadband is an essential tool for empowering populations and a key priority in the 21st century due to its transformative power as an enabler for economic and social growth. It leads to increased income and reduced unemployment via opportunities for remote work and the ability to expand brick-and-mortar enterprises online. A report published by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has criticised the UK Government's broadband strategy and its revised targets (2025), which excludes 15% of the UK's population, mostly in rural areas. Network operators have fewer incentives to operate in rural areas due to low user densities, increasing deployment costs and resulting in lower revenue potential. As a result, broadband technologies are deployed mainly in urban areas and with the recent 5G rollout, rural communities would be left out. Orb Connect (OC) has designed a last-mile solution that allows mobile network operators to extend their coverage to rural communities with minimal capital and operating expenditure. We overcome these challenges using an 'Integrated Access Backhaul' (IAB) protocol introduced in 3GPP release 10, 2011. IAB allows for multi-hop backhauling, i.e., antennas within a private network (OC) can share the same frequency, replacing the need for traditional and cost-intensive fibre backhaul. In 2020, telecom revenue contributed £31.5bn to the UK economy, and the average UK household spent £79.08/month on telecom services equivalent to 3% of the average monthly household spend. The prominent players in the UK when it comes to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) as of Q1/2021 are Virgin Media (24%), BT (23%) and Sky (17%) - Statista 2021\. Emerging players include Broadway Partners with TV Whitespace (TVWS), Starlink and Virgin Orbit with satellite broadband. Unlike the other ISPs, OC provides a sustainable last-mile solution that is backhaul-agnostic and can be used in collaboration with the above-listed ISPs. We will launch in Q4/2024 and initially target local regions with no internet connection (which accounts for 13% of our Total addressable market TAM). We project ~500,000 customers by Y5 with revenue =£19.8m and a 20% YoY sales growth in our TAM.