John Deere equipment at a car dealership in Taylor, Texas. Mohammad Khursheed/Reuters
Starlink and John Deere have reached an agreement to provide agricultural equipment with high-speed satellite internet.
Elon Musk said the agreement is “great for farmers” who can’t yet take advantage of Deere’s digital technologies.
It’s a big step for Starlink, which aims to bring high-speed internet to rural areas around the world.
This is a machine translation of an article from our US colleagues at Business Insider. It was automatically translated and checked by an editor.
Elon Musk and SpaceX want to provide the world with high-speed internet with thousands of Starlink satellites. Now John Deere wants to integrate its rural customers into the network.
The tractor giant and the satellite company have signed an agreementto connect tractors and other agricultural equipment to the Internet, reports the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
The companies plan to begin adding Starlink to new and existing Deere machines in the U.S. and Brazil later this year. “This will be great for farmers,” wrote Musk on X
Elon Musk laughs during an event with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in London. Kirsty Wigglesworth/Reuters
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For example, according to a report by the “WSJ”, 30 percent of agricultural land in the USA and around 70 percent in Brazil do not have sufficient internet connection.
This means they cannot take full advantage of the digital farming technologies developed by John Deere that allow farmers to remotely monitor and troubleshoot their machines and collect precise data about their crops and soils. It is not yet clear how much the Starlink service will cost farmers.
SpaceX uses Falcon 9 rockets to carry around 60 Starlink satellites at a time. Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
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According to a WSJ report, John Deere tested various satellite options for about eight months. “With Starlink, we never had any problems in the areas we traveled,” JC Schemper, a Nebraska contractor who tested the service on two of his combines, told the WSJ. “With the satellite you are always connected, whether you are at the bottom of a hill, at the top of a hill or 80 kilometers away.”
As the WSJ reports, farmers must install the Starlink antennas, which are designed for rough and dusty terrain, on the roof of vehicle cabins.
“Starlink is ideal for rural areas,” the satellite company wrote on X.
John Deere tractors for sale at a dealer in Longmont, Colorado Rick Wilking/Reuters
In fact, connecting the world‘s rural areas to the Internet is the company’s world-changing mission. To this end, the company has, among other things, provided internet connections to Ukrainian troops and communities recovering from natural disasters.
Large launch customers like John Deere will be critical to Starlink’s expansion. To date, the company has almost 5,300 satellites in orbit. Musk has said he ultimately wants to have 42,000, to the chagrin of astronomers and night sky enthusiasts who argue the satellites are too bright.
Read the original article Business Insider.
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