Just as a counter datapoint, my experience in Ethiopia was very different. I was sometimes three hours from the nearest paved road and yet I would have full cellular signal, and often even 2G or 3G connectivity.

I had no issues browsing the web, using my VPN, or doing anything else. I was with a group of about 40 people, and we had about 10 or 15 local Ethiopians in our group. None would be considered privileged or rich, and they also all had regular Internet access either on their phones or at Internet cafes. Their nearest real city was Mekele up in the North. Almost all of them folks in our group had Facebook.

Even at the top of the Gheralta mountains we had strong signal. It was actually mind-blowing how much cellular coverage we had in the country.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10100191249027242&se...

https://scontent-sjc2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/2...

https://scontent-sjc2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/4...