For the swine industry, new technologies to better run an operation rely on the ability to transfer data. But a reliable internet connection is needed to secure and protect that information.

Expanding into agriculture, GXC, a provider of private cellular network solutions, can help operators better adopt new technology like monitoring and farm automation systems. To help farmers understand its mesh system, GXC deployed one at the Molly Caren Agricultural Center at Ohio State University.

“Growers that have large acreages can really benefit from GXC’s private cellular,” says Sean Horan, executive vice president of global sales at GXC. “For example, the research farm network covers 2,100 acres of production farmland with two nodes” — one at the main office and another on a remote silo.

The largest GXC system used in a swine operation so far has 22 feeding rooms chained together. Before the system was installed, the operator could not collect data from all the rooms because the network was not able to carry the load.

“You could not get the data back across a Wi-Fi network from the feeders,” says Jay Hess, product director at Orbit Farm Technologies. “So, if they have a network like GXC’s, it enables producers to actually receive the information that they need over a large area.”

Security ensured

Another benefit of the GXC system is the security the private network provides.

“Wi-Fi might seem secure, but that does not mean that a hacker is not going to be able to figure out the password,” Horan says. “Our service ties the end-user device to the network core servers with end-to-end encryption to avoid eavesdropping. It can also work behind any kind of a firewall that may be used to manage access to your network already.”

In addition to this clean channel of communication for hog operators, the equipment can withstand harsh environments of a swine confinement facility.

To learn more, visit GXC online.