The StarPhoenix - HiTech:

Crop production show offers farmers hi-tech gadgets

By Murray Lyons - January, 2002

Farmers are always looking to the sky for changes in the weather and with today's new technology that means paying to get access to satellite-linked information beamed down from the sky.
Producers touring booths at the Western Canadian Crop Production Show found information technology alongside giant spray wagons and grain companies selling canola contracts.
Two companies at the show are tapping into farmer frustration with rural dial-up Internet, now considered too slow and cumbersome as Web sites get more complex.
One company, DTN, sells market information downloaded by satellite link. While not a true Internet service since it's not interactive, it's more economical than competing services.
Mike Millar of Grandora was touting the company's basic service which he says farmers can get for about $1 a day.
The basic service offers such services as Chicago and Winnipeg grain market futures information, Western Canada pulse news, Canadian short-range weather and livestock market information.
"People are looking at a market where they have to control their expenses, but they also have to have timely market information," Millar said.
"When a grain company gives you a call and asks you to bring in a couple of loads of grain, how do you know the price they are offering you is the high or low of the day?"
Market information coming into people's homes through DTN is subject only to a 10-minute time lag, he said.
"If you had a B-train load of canola - and that's about 40 tones - if you can get an extra $4 a tones, you've basically paid for half your system," he said.
While DTN touts a basic satellite market information service, full two-way high-speed Internet by satellite is now available in Canada.
Garry Gettis of Transponder One Satellite in Saskatoon markets the C-com service, which is so far the only interactive high-speed Internet satellite service to be licensed by the CRTC.
In fact, because the user transmits broadband data back to the satellite, the person must pay an $79 annual license to the CRTC.
Despite a capital outlay of nearly $2,000 and a basic monthly fee of around $140, Gettis says he has found there is a market in Saskatchewan for such a service, especially among farmers who also operate a related agriculture business such as a seed cleaning plant.
He says many rural customers who need to use the Internet for commercial purposes are willing to pay for the higher cost satellite service because their computers are currently tied up for long periods of time with dial-up service as they try to get simple market information or find a part.
"Currently, they can spend two and a half hours trying to get one item if that land line is busy," Gettis said.
Gettis and C-COM's Western Canada account manager Terry Smith says C-Com offers downloads as quick as any urban high-speed service offered through cable or telephone companies.
Smith says rural users don't object to paying up front for the transponder equipment and dish, but admitted there is some resistance to the $140 monthly cost. Competition from other wireless Internet providers will likely arrive a year from now, he predicted.
C-Com has about 1,500 subscribers now in Canada. Besides agriculture businesses, Smith says fishing and hunting lodges, mining camps, oil drilling sites, northern and aboriginal schools and other remote locations are early customers for the service.
C-COM satellite is affiliated with Hughes Network Services in the U.S., which launched the Galaxy series satellites purposely to handle Internet customers.