Network to drive the data
IT WILL be like a rifle shot.
That’s how Mark Forster described the effectiveness and power of Telstra’s new narrowband network.
During his 2019 Summer Grains Conference presentation Mr Forster defined the new narrowband network, which rolled online about two years ago, as being vital for agriculture’s data collection. He described traditional broadband networks as being on a wide bandwidth that transmitted over many channels at once.
“And like in crowed room when everyone starts talking, it can get confusing. It’s like a shotgun, there is a lot of output but it doesn’t go very far.
“But the narrowband network is like a riffle shot.
“It’s on small amounts of bandwidth, with small amounts of data, that can go a very long way.
“So we are getting three to four times the distance from the same tower with our narrowband network.”
For farmers this means they can buy a device about the size of a baseball for a couple hundred dollars and start collecting data. Mr Forster described the technology as Telstra’s way to support agribusiness, which was “big business” to them.
“Telstra is not going to be selling you a new tractor,” he said.
“That’s not what we do. If some of you remember our history, we were the postmaster general. Our job was collecting and conveying information, and that’s exactly what we will do for the agriculture industry.”
He said there were other countries making better use of data-driven farming. He asked the crowd which country shipped the most live barramundi.
“It’s Israel. They are also one of the top suppliers of tulips to Europe. We should take our hats off to them, they are beating us as they are using water in different ways, they are far more efficient than we are, because they are measuring every single drop.”