Gary Truitt from the Smart Phone Farming blog discusses whether a tablet is practical for agricultural use.

Tablets are the hot item in mobile communications today. During the Christmas season, millions of them flew into the hands of willing consumers. My son reported that so many students returning to his university from the holiday break had new iPads that, when they all turned them on, they crashed the dorm’s wireless network.

The iPad is the leader, with over 50% of the market, but a flood of new Android models are grabbing market share. While these devices offer some unique advantages for mobile connectivity, gaming, social networking, and entertainment, are they practical for agricultural applications?  There is not a lot of research on farmer adoption of tablets. Farmer use of Smartphones is on the rise, and there is some indication of tablet use, but it is just too early to get a good read on if farmers are moving to this new platform. For the past month, I have been working with a tablet from Verizon and have a few thoughts on tablet application for farming operations.

The first and obvious advantage is the screen size. Ten inch screens are the standard today, but there are several new models with 8 inch and 5 inch displays.  These areas which are much larger than a Smartphone screen provide vast improvements in reading data, entering data, and in viewing charts and graphs, weather radar images, and videos.  Most newer models have a front-facing camera that can be used for video conferences and other face-to-face communications. In addition, a tablet can do just about everything your Smartphone can do, except make a phone call.  Although, if you use Skype or some other on line phone service, you could use the tablet for this.

Read the rest of the story on the Smart Phone Farming blog.

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News source: Hoosier Ag Today

Gary Truitt from Hoosier AG Today using the 4G modem to broadcast at the Indiana State Fair

Hoosier Ag Today, Indiana’s premier agricultural radio network, will use the new 4G wireless network from Verizon for broadcasts from the Indiana State Fair.

“It is the juxtaposition of two very old and very new technologies,” said Gary Truitt President of HAT. The network will broadcast its farm news and market radio programs to 45 stations across the state from the historic Normandy Barn using Verizon’s 4G network to deliver the programs via the internet to those stations.

“This old dairy barn was cutting edge agricultural technology in the early 1900s. Today, we are using cutting-edge communications technology to delivery timely information to Indiana farmers,” said Truitt.

Verizon’s 4G LTE service was recently installed over the Indiana State Fairgrounds. This technology provides wireless service that is 10 times faster than 3G service, according to Verizon.

“This greater speed will improve the speed and quality of the broadcasts we deliver,” said Truitt.

Since the technology is wireless, it will allow HAT to broadcast from the Normandy Barn or anywhere on the fairgrounds. HAT will be using the Samsung mobile hotspot and a Verizon 4G USB modem. In addition, Verizon has provided 4G smart phones for improved communication among HAT reporters covering the fair. HAT will also be using 4G technology to post news and results from major fair events on its Facebook and Twitter feeds.

According to Verizon, 4G LTE users should experience average data rates of 5 to 12 megabits per second (Mbps) on the downlink and 2 to 5 Mbps on the uplink, so customers inside the I-465 loop can enjoy the fast speeds of the world’s first large-scale 4G LTE network. Verizon Wireless is also working with rural communications companies to collaboratively build and operate a 4G network in those areas using the tower and backhaul assets of the rural company and Verizon Wireless’ core 4G LTE equipment and premium 700 MHz spectrum.