rural usually means spread out over a wide area with limited electricity (or places to site a cell).

So if they can reduce the costs by using less cells, and these cells also reach a greater distance, then they can lower the cost. Less cells, greater coverage means more customers per cell.

Even if the total data throughput is lower, having a reasonable internet speed is and range at a lower cost are probably more important factors. With less customers on each cell, the lower data throughput might not matter as much.

That's how it looks to me, but I'm not an expert so might have this wrong.

So which Einstein at LTE shot the statement that Low Freq (800MHz LTE) is for Rural.

"Being a fairly low frequency, LTE at 800MHz is particularly well suited for deployments in rural areas, as it has a good balance of range and capacity."

Low freq has less bandwidth but travel large distance and has high penetration through walls. High freq packs more data/bandwidth/waves per sec but signal can NOT propagate farther than low-freq, also high freq has less penetration through walls. think of u see a wall's cross-section, too many wave-peaks (high freq) trying to pass through cross-section at same time (think friction here). low freq will be like one snake-like wave passing through.

Though high freq face Urban structures resistance the Bandwidth race has pushed for more cell-sites to tackle penetration/range issue.