Farms have stake in high-tech fight
The days of sitting at a desk to log onto the Internet to look up information or buy a gift seem like ancient history. The world we live in today depends on instant access to the Internet courtesy of the high-powered connected device in your pocket. The incredible and fast-moving advances in mobile technology are especially important to folks in rural America. In today’s fast-moving world, everyone wants to be connected, but disputes between corporations can affect small users like myself.
Small mom-and-pop shops who prefer living away from urban areas depend on technology to reach new customers and keep existing ones — even customers on the other side of the country. Small business owners and startups use their smartphones or tablets to track inventory, market their products on social media and manage finances.
Farmers and ranchers are increasingly reliant on mobile technology as well. To make it as a farmer or rancher it takes good soil, the right weather and a lot of hard work. Some things never change. But walking the fields with a notebook to record crop information or relying on last night’s weather report before heading out for the day is just not the way farming is done today.
We sometimes hear about the “technology divide” and think of it as an issue related to income level. But I can tell you that people in rural communities experience it in a different way. Even people of means often lack a good broadband connection at home or work. Recently, the Federal Communications Commission found that more than half of Americans in rural communities lack the kind of Internet access the government regards as broadband today. At my ranch in rural Texas, we have no wired broadband options going into our home or anywhere nearby; so our family is entirely reliant on our mobile devices to gain Internet access that is vital to running the ranch.
Fortunately, thanks to the great advancements in wireless network speeds and capacity and the capabilities of today’s connected devices, we are not being left behind. I rely on smartphones and tablets to control electrified fences, manage how the cattle get fed and how we irrigate our land for maximum efficiency, using real time information. Basically, keeping in touch and doing anything that requires recording and managing information out here is done on tablet or phone.
Given the reality of strong and growing reliance on mobile technology in rural America, it is worth paying close attention to the potential threat a pending issue to be ruled on by the International Trade Commission poses for us.
A company in California named NVidia that has patents related to chips found in many mobile devices is asserting that Samsung Electronics Co. and Qualcomm Inc. infringed on patents it holds. Nvidia is asking the ITC to issue an exclusion order that could keep all kinds of popular and reasonably-priced Samsung smartphones and tablets out of the U.S. market. The decision by the ITC would make it harder — if not impossible — for customers to purchase cell- phones and tablets using these chips.
I am neither an engineer nor a lawyer, but I do respect the right of individuals or companies to derive income from their ideas. I have faith in our court system to resolve business disputes and award financial damages if necessary. But I have real concerns about any type of exclusion order that would limit the availability of devices that people need and use every day. Issuing an exclusion order because of an infringed patent amounts to tearing down the entire barn because one cow got loose; it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. In order for rural broadband access to grow, rural users must be able to purchase reasonably priced phones and tablets in order for the rural infrastructure to grow. An exclusion order by the ITC would prevent that.
The disruption of an exclusion order would cause real pain to consumers, small businesses and farmers. Our smartphones and tablets are critical to running our businesses competitively and efficiently, so it would hit us where it hurts — in our wallets.
With modern technological tools to monitor weather and crop conditions, map coordinates via GPS applications, and manage livestock, today’s farm is a sophisticated enterprise. People in rural America have the best of both worlds — life in the country but connected to the world. Let’s keep that progress moving in the right direction and not create undue problems with an unnecessary exclusion order.