# Closing Connectivity Gap: An Overview of Mobile Coverage Solutions for Not-Spots in Rural Zones
## 3 Potential Solutions
### UAV-Assisted Networks  
Nowadays, unmanned aircraft have commercial uses and have enabled new research interest and innovation toward improving connectivity. The smaller the airship, the better the performance in bestowing coverage, especially for isolated areas. In this case, the drone industry has addressed several civil instances and applications within an affordable and straightforward aim: leveraging UAVs' maneuverability to readily provide connectivity as an off-the-shelf alternative within the current MNO infrastructures. Historically, the first purpose for Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) was for military and surveillance fields. During the second half of the 20 th century, Warfighter's internet yielded a reliable and readily deployable UAV-based ad hoc network to boost backbone communications [45]. This exploited UAS approach resulted in higher throughput standards. Therefore, a network-centric UAS operation concept arose beyond military and political boundaries and was consequently adopted for civil and economic interests. In a nutshell, the unmanned airships outpaced solidery endurance. Since the use of drones has been expedited, the need for regulating them has arisen as well in terms of complying with safety standards, even though they reach lower altitudes than other larger forms of aircraft. Therefore, the Global Unmanned aircraft system Traffic Management Association--or GUTMA--appears to foster trustworthy, secure, and efficient integration of UAS into global airspace, addressing drone stakeholders practices--defined as UTM stakeholders--by close cooperation and continuous flight information management [46]. To foster a collaborative and innovative community for UTM stakeholders, GUTMA encourages governments to adopt operation-centric, safe, fair, and secure deployment of UTM solutions. Moreover, with respect to allowing the full integration of UTM services with the current network infrastructure, the first step should predict the digitalization needs of UAS technology trends [47]. Once these are set forth, Table 2 compiles some of the key specifications for the UAV-assisted network in line with the deployment scenario, namely in urban, suburban, and rural contexts. The gathered information in Table 2 divides the network features into two correlated fields: target scenarios and use case context. Concerning the first field, [PERSON] et al. approached the stakeholder populations in [48] and their LTE network's technical deployment in environments such as urban-macro with aerial vehicles (UMa-AV), urban-micro with aerial vehicles (UMi-AV), and rural-macro with aerial vehicles (RMa-AV). The last scenario exhibits a better mobility performance (BMP) than the others. The second field \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l c c c c c c c c} \hline \hline \multirow{2}{*}{**Scenario**} & \multirow{2}{*}{**LHT** **(m)**} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**Network Parameters**} & \multirow{2}{*}{**LOS**} & \multirow{2}{*}{**NLOS**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Contest**} \\  & & & & & **Use** & & **Network** & **Flight** \\  & & **(m)** & & & & **Case** & **Configuration** & **Time (min)** \\ \hline UMa-AV & 22.5 & 100 & & \multirow{3}{*}{X} & \multirow{3}{*}{X} & HD/MEH & 5G & TRD \\ UMi-AV & TRD & TRD & & & & \(\times\) & M2H & 15–45 \\ RMa-AV & 10 & 40 & \(\times\) & \(\times\) & & L2M/LD & 60–180 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 2: Context-based Specifications for UAV Networks. considers zone density, emphasizing the highest (HD), the medium-to-high (M2H), the low-to-medium (L2M), and the lowest (LD) densities [49]. An analysis of coverage issues should extend the operational scope through defined network architecture to successfully deploy aerial communications. A likely first option launches the UAV model by hooking up one or several Ground-BS (GBS) and using the drone as a relay node in the network. Secondly, a swarm of drones seems suitable for covering a vast extension of nodes or rural-dispersed nodes, creating a solid construction of flying ad hoc network (FANET) networking.