AGRICULTURE
“ THERE IS A CLEAR NEED FOR LOCAL EXPERTISE TO ADDRESS LOCAL CHALLENGES.”
Mbps and upload speeds around 20 Mbps, tests show that Starlink also has an average latency of 294 ms at an affordable price.
While some organisations claim that farms need symmetrical broadband speeds of 100 Mbps for both upload and download – speeds that aren’ t even available in many dense urban areas – most precision agriculture technologies and techniques do not require such high-quality service. Crop monitoring and management systems, intelligent irrigation systems and analytical tools all use only a few Mbps. More intensive technologies, such as drone imaging systems or automated farm machinery, use significantly more bandwidth, but farmers can and do manage with minimum acceptable speeds.
PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE
While many local farmers have found Starlink the most effective connectivity solution, the South African government has yet to licence the service. Consequently, all local customers are relying on the service’ s roaming feature to access it.
Because Starlink and John Deere, the world’ s largest manufacturer of farm machinery, have announced a partnership to provide internet connectivity for Deere machines, and Starlink is also collaborating with Oracle to develop an AI-powered mapping application for agricultural use, this seems quite short-sighted on the part of the government, says Firth.
“ Even if you’ re only thinking about basic connectivity, the South African government’ s hesitation to license Starlink locally is an unnecessary barrier for the entire agricultural sector. Look at Botswana, which recently licensed Starlink, showing its commitment to help farmers use technology to stay or become globally competitive.” IB
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