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The Burkinshaw family operate a mixed farming operation to the west of Wagga Wagga. As part of the 5G Innovation Initiative (5GII) project that Zetifi delivered with Australian Government funding they were provided a 5G-enabled ZetiRover unit to evaluate whether it could address the patchy coverage on their property.

Craig Burkinshaw and his son William were very pleased with the results. The ZetiRover helped with timeliness of data entries, access to agronomist recommendations in real-time via the AgWorld platform, and making phone calls while out and about in the paddock.

In contrast to some of the other triallists that participated in the 5GII project, the Burkinshaw’s also moved their rover around onto different machinery and vehicles depending on the key activities on farm. During sowing William had it set up on the cabin of their Case IH tractor so he could be entering data into AgWorld whist spraying and sowing. AgWorld is an online farm management software package that allows users to capture any information they want to about what is happening in each paddock as well as help keep farmers and their advisors connected with any changes made to plans updated in real time. Prior to using a ZetiRover there would often be delays in receiving recommendations from their advisor. Syncing data entries also had to wait until Will travelled through an area with better service or back at home on the computer. With the ZetiRover, however, there were no such delays.  At other times of the year when more hours are spent elsewhere the ZetiRover was moved to his dad’s ute so he could keep business ticking over by being able to make and take calls whilst travelling around the farm.
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Photos: 5G ZetiRover unit mounted on the Burkinshaw’s Case IH tractor on their farm west of Wagga Wagga, NSW.

NOTE: This case study was researched and written by Birchip Cropping Group as part of the Australian Government-funded 5G Innovation Initiative (5GII) project. The 5G enhanced mobile broadband ZetiRover unit was provided to Burkinshaw Farming free of charge for the period of the trial.

Self-driving tractors and other autonomous farm machinery promise many transformative benefits for the future of farming. They have the potential to reduce labour costs, improve farming precision, and can allow farmers to use their time more productively on other tasks to optimise their operations. Various prototypes and some autonomous machines are currently available to Australian farmers; however, connectivity remains a big barrier to their adoption.

One such company that specialises in autonomous machinery is Australian agtech company SwarmFarm Robotics. SwarmFarm are true pioneers and they have the runs on board to prove it, having recently revealed that their autonomous robots have already covered one million acres of farm land through over 55,000 hours – an impressive achievement that puts them ahead of many much larger companies that are now trying to catch up in the race to full autonomy. Despite this success, poor connectivity continues to be a major barrier to adoption as it hampers much of the functionality of the robots and can seriously impact on running time if an operator loses contact with the SwarmBot. For this reason, SwarmFarm were very keen to assess Zetifi’s connectivity solutions to alleviate this pain point for their customers.

Field Service Coordinator for SwarmFarm, Dustin Van Nek, recently trialled a ZetiRover on SwarmBot robot that was guiding a 12m wide Weed-It autonomous sprayer on a farmer’s property in the Darling Downs, QLD. Two SwarmBot sprayers were in use on the farm so Dustin was able to compare the Zetifi product mounted on one, to their standard 4G solution that was running on the other. In terms of improving serviceability of the machines Dustin noted that when software engineers were required to login and do remote updates, pull data down from the cloud and push it into the machines (a twostep process) “the SwarmBot with the ZetiRover had completed both stages before the traditional 4G solution had completed three quarters of the first stage”.

The superior coverage from the ZetiRover also improved the upload speed for coverage maps, meaning that the farm owner could see a more accurate coverage map showing where the SwarmBot had been working. The farmer commented that when checking the two SwarmBot coverage maps the one with the ZetiRover had a complete coverage map loaded and the robot connected using SwarmFarm’s legacy 4G connectivity solution was a significant way behind.

Another important function that benefited from improved connectivity was the ability of the robot to send photo and video footage to the phone app for review by the operator when it encounters an unexpected obstruction. Being able to send these photos to the operator in real-time so an instruction can be given as to whether the robot should continue with the assigned task is critical in maximising the running time of the SwarmBots.

In addition, Dustin also had a ZetiRover mounted to his work ute and found that “being a field service coordinator I’m constantly in contact with field service fitters and support staff.  It [the ZetiRover] has certainly increased the coverage so that I can remain productive because I spend a lot of time in my vehicle which is essentially unproductive hours for me.”

Photos (top to bottom): SwarmBot fitted with 5G ZetiRover and Weed-It Sprayer boom at FarmFest 2022; Close-up of 5G ZetiRover and antenna array on e-box of SwarmBot at FarmFest 2022.
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NOTE: This case study was researched and written by Birchip Cropping Group as part of the Australian Government-funded 5G Innovation Initiative (5GII) project. The 5G enhanced mobile broadband ZetiRover units were provided to SwarmFarm Robotics free of charge for the period of the trial.

As a stock and station agent for Elders Stud Stock, an important component of Jenni O’Sullivan’s role is ensuring the success of premium sheep and cattle auctions across north-eastern Victoria and southern NSW.

Reflecting a digital trend that is helping to improve the accessibility of livestock sales, Elders often makes use of the AuctionsPlus online auction service to stream video and audio of livestock auctions. Online auctions can significantly increase the competitiveness of the sale and have enabled Elders to host successful auctions during peak COVID periods when auction attendance numbers were impacted by border closures and other social restrictions.

Unfortunately, mobile blackspots are common on host properties, and this limits the extent to which Jenni can use online auction platforms at her customers’ properties. According to Jenni, online auctions are a win-win situation for everyone but only when she has sufficient coverage.

Jenni purchased a ZetiRover from Zetifi in August 2020 so she could offer the benefits of online live auctions to more of her clients. The ZetiRover is a portable Wi-Fi solution that provides the best possible coverage with high-gain antennas and multi-carrier technology which provides access to the Telstra and Optus networks. If there’s even a faint signal available, the ZetiRover will find it! It’s also built to withstand the dirt, dust and rain that come with life on the farm.

With the ZetiRover, Jenni can now confidently stream high-quality video and audio from stud sales and other on-farm auctions, regardless of where she is. She can also use the ZetiRover on her vehicle when travelling between auctions and meetings to reliably make and receive phone calls via Wi-Fi Calling.

“Elders has firm auction start times and with the ZetiRover I’m now able to interface with AuctionsPlus and use my phone when I need it most,” said Jenni. “If you haven’t got the confidence that you can make a call or easily get information, our whole day would just fall over. Having that uninterrupted connectivity makes a big difference to helping serve our customers and the productivity of the business.”

One important difference between Zetifi and traditional carriers or internet service providers is the ability to use the full range of backhaul connections available when designing farm Wi-Fi solutions.

The availability of the nbn network right across Australia makes it an ideal backhaul choice for many farmers. By combining the nbn connection with Zetifi’s ruggedised long-range Wi-Fi products, farmers can extend the nbn to their sheds, yards and machinery.

One such project has dramatically improved connectivity at Bullarto Downs, a large broadacre cropping farm owned by Warakirri Cropping Group in Hopetoun, Western Victoria. The project has enabled Farm Manager David Drum and his staff to access the nbn Fixed Wireless network for the first time and has transformed voice and data blackspots into connected spaces.

A solar-powered microcell repeater from Zetifi at a neighbouring property captures the fixed wireless connection and sends this to a base station at the farm.

“The connection we had before was very marginal because of the distance from town but with the new nbn-Zetifi system we’re able to run Zoom meetings and use Wi-Fi Calling to help our phone calls. It’s been good this year because with COVID we’ve had a lot more meetings via Zoom,” said David.

“We use it for a lot of things. I have regular Teams meetings with my manager and all the data for our monthly reports is in the cloud, so we need to be able to access that. There’s nothing worse than working on those reports and the systems aren’t talking to each other properly.“

As well as these uses of connectivity in the office, it’s the increasing use of software to manage the day-to-day running of the business that is really changing things.

“It’s not until you really think about it that you realise how much we use the internet. We run software that manages our cropping program and spray treatments, online safety software, and our tractors run the MyJohnDeere platform which means I can login and see the same screens as the bloke out in the paddock, and you need good internet to do that,” said David

“Computers are getting faster and becoming more important and sometimes out here you may not have that connectivity on your phone, but with the NBN we’ve got good high-speed data coming through. Knowing that we’ve got a reliable connection through the Fixed Wireless network and the nbn-Zetifi setup has made a big difference.”

From this initial success, the site is now one of many farms across Australia at which Zetifi utilises the powerful backhaul capacity of the nbn™ network to provide true last-mile connectivity to sheds, yards, machinery and paddocks.

As Zetifi CEO Dan Winson explains, these projects extend the benefits of the nbn™ network beyond the farmhouse and offer new possibilities that will improve productivity for agricultural businesses of all sizes.

“When you talk to farmers, you quickly realise that they’re some of the most innovative people you’ll meet so they’re naturally very switched on to technology and what it can offer them,” Mr Winson said.

“These days a lot of that technology requires connectivity so extending Fixed Wireless beyond the farmhouse or office and into the paddock has enormous potential for IoT devices and other agtech solutions.

“There is a rapidly growing market for connected devices that track the movement and weight of livestock with electronic identification and precision agriculture with smart tractors becoming the norm.

“The backhaul capacity of the nbn is absolutely vital for us to deliver these solutions in many locations around Australia.”

FOOTNOTE

This story first appeared on page 12 of ‘Connecting Australian Agriculture’ – an important joint report from nbn and the National Farmers Federation that was published on 9 November 2021. The report is the starting point for a three-year partnership between these two organisations that aims to lift the digital capability of Australian farmers as a key factor that will help Australian agriculture grow to a $100 billion industry by 2030. It showcases many other on-farm applications of the nbn network to improve productivity in agriculture.

In May this year, Charles Sturt University and Food Agility announced that they will partner to build the Global Digital Farm, Australia’s first fully-automated commercial farm, at Charles Sturt’s AgriPark in Wagga Wagga.

The Global Digital Farm will demonstrate the future of farming through pioneering projects involving robotics and artificial intelligence and by creating new sustainability and carbon models to drive improvements in farming practice.

Connectivity is essential for many of these technologies and for this reason it is fitting that the first of these projects to be announced involves Zetifi providing long-range Wi-Fi connectivity that can be accessed right across the farm.

Zetifi will work alongside researchers at Charles Sturt University and University of Technology Sydney to develop antenna arrays that can be fitted to mobile and stationary farming equipment to provide long-range communication. Tractors and trucks will become roving Wi-Fi devices with a range of up to 5 kilometres to provide farm-wide internet coverage.

Food Agility Chief Scientist, Professor David Lamb, said the new technology would be enabling infrastructure for Australian agriculture.

“Improving connectivity for Australian farmers is the single most critical factor in driving productivity and sustainability in agriculture,” Professor Lamb said.

“Farmers increasingly rely on high-level data analytics, automation and networks of devices that talk to each other over vast distances. This new technology will connect people and devices far beyond the farm gate and will be the backbone for the future of autonomous farming.”

CEO of Zetifi, Dan Winson, said farmers deserved the same connectivity for their businesses as those in urban areas.

“I’ve seen farmers perform the most amazing acts of contortion, hanging out tractor windows and climbing up ladders, trying to get a decent connection,” Mr Winson said.

“This will be an Australian-designed solution, made for Australian conditions to deliver connectivity wherever it’s needed on the farm. It will complement NBN wireless broadband and satellite coverage, helping farmers to transfer critical data across our vast landscapes.”

The technology will be a combination of adapted off-the-shelf and bespoke solutions, including a custom antenna array that is being developed in collaboration with experts from the University of Technology Sydney.

Co-Director, RF and Communication Technologies Laboratory (RFCT) at UTS and Sensing Innovations Lead at Food Agility CRC, Dr Negin Shariati explains the technology in development.

“At the heart of communication system which provides long-range connectivity is an antenna. RFCT-UTS researchers will design new types of antennas integrated with custom RF module for enabling long-range communications in smart farms, ” Dr Negin Shariata said.

Zetifi has been awarded $396,000 via the Federal Government’s Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre to commercialise the ZetiGate – an innovative wireless network gateway that uses software-defined networking to seamlessly combine the speed of low-earth orbit satellite technology with the reliability of a backup 3G/4G LTE network.

Low-earth orbit satellites are 60 times closer to earth than traditional satellites and by reducing the distance that data has to travel and serving a smaller number of users, the technology offers the promise of higher speeds, more data and lower latency than traditional satellite connections.

The project will focus this emerging technology on the needs of the Australian food and beverage sector as poor connectivity currently limits the application of digital technology during key stages of the supply chain for regional food and beverage producers. The benefits of improved connectivity and digitisation include greater transparency for food provenance and traceability via real-time monitoring and the use IoT monitoring data to guide critical manufacturing or processing decisions.

By addressing the reliability and coverage issues of existing technologies, the ZetiGate delivers the fast and reliable connectivity that food and beverage manufacturers need to fully embrace digitisation throughout the supply chain.

You can read more about the project at https://www.amgc.org.au/project/zetigate-connecting-the-food-beverage-supply-chain/

Zetifi is excited to have joined the recently established Australian AgriTech Association which aims to foster new connections amongst farmers, investors and innovators and cement Australia’s position as a world-class agritech ecosystem.

Technology partnerships with farmers and companies such as Case IH and AuctionsPlus have already played an important role in Zetifi’s development and as CEO & Founder Dan Winson explains, providing a connectivity platform that enables farmers to embrace digital agritech applications is central to the company’s identity and mission.

“Zetifi was founded on the realisation that farmers were poorly served by traditional telecommunications technologies – plenty of people were developing digital solutions for farmers but not nearly as many trying to solve the connectivity issues that were preventing them from adopting this technology in the first place,” said Dan

“We’re based in regional Australia so having easy access to farmers has meant we’ve been able to speak with them directly and develop solutions that are specifically suited to this environment.

Whilst some of the innovations have required developing custom software to make installation and support possible in remote locations, some of the most important lessons have been the most basic, as Product Development Manager John Lucas explains.

“What farmers actually want is pretty simple – connectivity that’s resilient, is available where they’re working, and won’t give up on them because of some dust or mud. That’s what we set about building, and we’re now confident that our suite of products can meet these needs in most environments.”

Zetifi is unique among association members in that as well as serving farmers, it’s also providing better internet solutions for the home but Paul believes that the number of farmers needing a solution to implement an agtech application is set to increase in the years ahead.

“Not everyone that contacts Zetifi is thinking about agritech but we know that a lot of them are. Some of our calls come from people that just want better internet for home schooling or entertainment but over 40% of our customers tell us that they’re using our networks for on-farm digital technology,” said Paul.

“We fully expect this number to increase in the years to come as farmers continue to embrace new agtech solutions and things like autonomous vehicles that are being developed right here by companies like SwarmFarm become a regular sight in the paddock.”

To find out more about the work of the Australian AgriTech Association, please visit ausagritech.org or follow them via their social channels on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Hicks Beef is a leading family-owned premium stock breeder based near Holbrook, NSW. Poor coverage around the property has been a major impediment to modernising their operations through connected agricultural solutions. Previous efforts to resolve their connectivity issues using other technologies had failed, forcing them to rely on slow satellite internet for home and office connectivity.

Connectivity Problems

Despite having a 4G tower located close to the farm, nearby hills blocked the signal from reaching important parts of the property, including a cattle yard and the farmhouse. Manager Tom Hicks said coverage was so poor that you could only “get a text message out”.

While it was possible to receive SMS messages, Tom reported he would have to leave the cattle yard as calls would often drop out.

“If a staff member rings you or someone needed to ask a question, you had to leave the yard, get in your car and drive a kilometre to where you could get signal. I was constantly having to leave cattle yards to ring people,” said Tom.

Hicks Beef also experienced difficulties hosting online cattle auctions on the property as the copper-wiring between the farmhouse and cattle yard provided patchy connectivity and signal boosters didn’t work properly. The 4G reception was weak too. This limited the accessibility of bull sales via the AuctionsPlus platform and impeded Tom’s ability to access remote customer markets.

To help manage vital livestock data, Hicks Beef uses an RFID system to electronically tag and monitor cattle, enabling vets to access up-to-date animal information when assessing stock. The system has the capability to synchronise information to the cloud in real-time. Weak mobile coverage meant Tom was unable to make use of real-time information as data transfers would drop out, so at the end of each day Tom had to slowly upload the data via satellite from the farmhouse. It also created other costly risks, especially when it came to vet bills.

“If someone is assessing cattle, it can be quite time-consuming and expensive. If you have a device crash, you can lose important information resulting in vet assessments needing to be redone. Provided there is connectivity, the app can instantaneously sync the information to the cloud so the data is always up to date.“

Solution

Tom needed a solution that was fast and reliable. He learnt about Zetifi when an AuctionsPlus representatives explained they’d implemented Zetifi’s wireless technology to resolve their connectivity issues for online saleyard auctions. Impressed by the ability to establish a long-range, high-bandwidth connection in an area normally considered to be a blackspot, he contacted Zetifi to enquire about installing a permanent solution for the farm.

A Zetifi Gateway was installed on the roof of a shed overlooking the main yard by an electrician. It captures the ordinarily poor 4G signal and creates a high-bandwidth Wi-Fi network throughout the workshop, cattle yard, house and paddocks providing broadband internet access and Wi-Fi calling for uninterrupted phone calls. Wi-Fi speeds in excess of 20 megabits per second are now the norm within the yard, farmhouse and paddocks around the property, ensuring Hicks Beef is always connected.

Result

The availability of wireless broadband in the yard and paddocks has improved productivity and safety on the farm. Hicks Beef is now able to make full use of their investment in RFID herd management, as the system continually syncs and safely backs up data to the cloud. The connectivity also means that veterinarians and other workers can quickly access extra information and resources when assessing cattle without, having to leave the yard to retrieve information or risk inconvenient device crashes.

The scalability and ease of expansion enabled by Zetifi’s modular system design on this property has raised the possibility of exploring additional connected devices, such as applications for water monitoring systems and Wi-Fi connected electric fence units.

A 200% improvement to Tom’s home and office internet speeds means his family’s devices can now operate consistently, even during cloud cover and wet weather. The network effortlessly facilitates high-definition video streaming, video calls and large file transfers, enabling the Hicks family to benefit from advances in household technology while also supporting the connectivity demands of this forward-thinking agribusiness operator.

On Sunday 22 August 2021, Zetifi was announced as a recipient of $932,850 in funding from the Australian Government as part of the 5G Innovation Initiative.

This funding will enable Zetifi to upgrade our existing range of long-range portable gateway devices to 5G and rigorously evaluate applications the 5G network in commercial trials with various agricultural industry stakeholders across Australia. Our long-range Wi-Fi capability will increase the usable range of high-speed and low-latency 5G in rural and remote areas.

The trials will showcase applications of 5G connectivity in autonomous farm vehicles, advanced smart-farm machinery, on-farm auctions, drone data transmission, and the needs of roaming rural workforces. These trials will be delivered in partnership with a large number of leading agtech and agribusiness partner companies including Case IH, SwarmFarm Robotics, Elders, Nutrien Ag, Delta Agribusiness and AuctionsPlus.

Each trial will be comprehensively evaluated by Birchip Cropping Group and the findings will be published as a series of case studies showcasing the benefits of 5G for different agribusinesses across Australia.

Through demonstrating the benefits of 5G technology in agriculture, the project will raise the awareness of 5G in rural and regional Australia and encourage telecommunications carriers to accelerate the deployment of 5G infrastructure in rural locations.

We’ve all heard a lot about 5G. In this article, Zetifi CEO & Founder Dan Winson separates fact from fiction and hype from hope to provide a straightforward explanation of 5G technology and its potential for digital agriculture and regional Australians.

If you asked me a year ago what impact 5G will have on Australian agriculture I’d probably have responded ‘very little’.

Ever since the 2G CDMA network was decommissioned, the telecommunications industry seems to have been trading off range for speed, leaving large numbers of primary producers with little or no coverage.

With the 3G shutdown just around the corner, I’d have told you that farmers should expect more of the same; faster speeds in populated areas and less coverage in the bush. But, it is beginning to look like I was wrong.

5G, at least some parts of the standard, has the potential to bring massive benefits to producers, and we’re excited to be at the forefront of testing the limits of this technology.

To understand what’s going on we need to unpack a few technical details.

5G is a collection of technologies and standards – we can’t have a sensible conversation about ‘5G’ without clarifying which part of the ‘5G’ standard we are talking about.

Most of the media coverage and hype is around the game-changing speeds, reliability and latency that will be offered by millimetre wave (mmWave) and mid-band 5G, but unfortunately these speeds are at the expense of decreased range. What is more interesting for farmers and for other businesses in the bush, is low-band 5G.

Low-band 5G is expected to offer increased speeds without the range tradeoffs of mid-band and mmWave.

If you hated science in high school you might want to skip this paragraph but to understand what 5G can and can’t offer people in remote areas it is helpful to understand the basic physics around radio frequency transmission… stay with me, it’s easier than it sounds. Essentially, lower frequency waves are bigger, travel further, and penetrate through obstacles like trees more easily at a given power level, however all other things being equal lower frequency waves can’t carry as much information as higher frequency waves. While a low-cost handheld UHF CB radio that works at a frequency of 477MHz can carry a scratchy voice signal for a few kilometres, to get the same range out of our 2412MHz Wi-Fi repeaters we need to use high-gain antennas, high-power signal amplifiers and sensitive receivers – it’s worth it though because unlike UHF radios, our Wi-Fi devices allow broadband internet access, video streaming and clear voice calls over Wi-Fi calling.

So while a lightning-fast mmWave cell running at 26,000 MHz installed on top of an average farmhouse would have a hard time reaching the mailbox, it is just the thing if you want to connect tens of thousands of people jammed into the MCG. It’s horses for courses and the 5G low-band networks that are starting to come online on the frequencies already used for 3G and 4G in rural areas should offer similar coverage with increased speeds and lower latency. These connections will open up a range of exciting opportunities for autonomous machinery, precision agriculture and agtech in general.

While Zetifi’s main job in 2021 remains providing producers with faster internet and better connectivity across the farm using Wi-Fi, we are betting big that 5G will drive the adoption of agtech in the years to come and we’re excited to be in at the ground floor.

Footnote

On 22 August 2021, Zetifi was announced as a recipient of $932,850 in funding from the Australian Government as part of the 5G Innovation Initiative. This funding will support rigorous testing of Zetifi’s innovative, ruggedised long-range 5G gateways in agricultural applications across various regional, rural and remote locations, and showcase the productivity benefits that high bandwidth, low latency connectivity can deliver to primary producers and the wider agriculture sector.

On Thursday 15 July, Zetifi brought together 30 leading Australian and international AgTech companies for a fast-paced discussion of the latest and greatest on-farm digital technology options for farmers.

We’ve published an edited recording of this session on YouTube. The session will introduce you to some of the most exciting new technology developments in agriculture, followed by a discussion of the current trends and barriers to AgTech adoption.

After a busy couple of months and some unexpected stress caused by weather delays and global supply chain shortages, we are pleased to report that we have now installed and connected all 50 trial sites for the Alternative Voice Services Trial (AVST) Program.

The AVST Program is a wonderful opportunity for Zetifi to develop and validate our technology and processes as we scale the business. We’ve been able to test our ability to design, manufacture and deploy Wi-Fi solutions in a wide range of locations and coverage areas. At times, we probably wondered why we’d made it so hard for ourselves, but the lessons we’ve learnt are invaluable and will continue to inform our product development and design processes well into the future.

Some of the most difficult sites we took on during this project involved very hilly and remote properties with no mobile coverage inside or outside at the main residence. To provide these triallists with fast, reliable and low-latency internet and Wi-Fi, we’ve installed standalone solar-powered ZetiCell small cells on a hillside near the house so we can then send this signal to the house and surrounding area via a point-to-point link.

Another very unexpected challenge that we encountered and overcame during the rollout of our AVST trial sites was a global supply chain shortages that required us to source new suppliers and even apply some of our own ingenuity to design and manufacture our own masts. A steel shortage meant that many of the poles and brackets that we’d previously used to install masts and antennas were unavailable. Our quick-thinking and clever production team had to work overtime to design, test and manufacture our own masts, along with custom roof and antenna brackets to keep the project on schedule. True to the saying that “necessity is the mother of invention”, something that began as a critical need has resulted in a new mast design that is significantly better and cheaper than those which we were purchasing from suppliers. Among many other advantages, our new masts are lighter and can be transported in a small cylindrical box and they guarantee that antennas are installed with the correct orientation every time.