A Survey on Real-Time Data Transfer and Energy Consumption Strategies for Rural and Remote IoT Technologies

Internet of Things (IoT) deployments in rural and remote areas often struggle to provide reliable real-time data due to intermittent connectivity, geographical barriers, and limited device power budgets. These limitations create a critical challenge to ensure low-latency connectivity and sustainable energy consumption. With the advent of communication technologies in remote and rural areas, people increasingly rely on connected devices for activities such as agriculture and infrastructure management. However, the application of communication technologies and IoT solutions faces several challenges in these areas, which typically have natural constraints mainly due to their geography. Among others, realtime communication and energy consumption are two of the main challenges to address in several scenarios, raising significant difficulties to the implementation of technology in these environments. This paper provides a literature review on real-time data transmission and power management strategies for IoT solutions in rural or remote scenarios. Specifically, it details state-of-the-art solutions addressing real-time data transmission and energy efficiency, and identifies key research gaps that merit further attention. Moreover, it also centers on efficient energy consumption approaches. By studying communication protocols and power management, this survey offers valuable insights for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers concerned with IoT deployment in resource-constrained environments.