Ag Tech Talk Podcast: How Satellite Communications Company Iridium Helps Manage the Flow of Crop Inputs

Greg Malakoff, Iridium’s Associate Director of Business Development, explains how the ag community uses the company’s global network of satellites to ensure all that data collected on a farm to manage crop inputs (and everything else in an operation) is always available and flows without interruption at all times.

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Podcast Transcript:

ABG: Let’s start with an overview of Iridium and tell us about your satellite network, how it works. Is it something you own these satellites, or you rent them from somebody.

Gregg Malakoff: Well, sure. So, let’s start out first, with a little history about Iridium. There’s a lot of buzz today about satellite networks. There’s a lot of new networks are called LEO networks, which means low earth orbit. But a lot of these operators today lease space from other satellite companies. At Iridium, these are our satellites, our ground structure, our network. It is entirely our enterprise.

We’ve been doing that for just over 25 years. In fact, we just updated our entire satellite network. So, there’s new satellites out there delivering a whole new level of communication, capability and communication. A lot of people know us from 25 years ago, when we were with Motorola and our satellite phones. That’s where business started.

But today we’re really more about IT and data connections over our satellite network. In fact, a lot of people don’t know this, either. We’re the only truly global satellite provider of any type, any frequency in orbit. People assume satellites are global, but they’re not. We are in the exclusive club, being the only one that covers the entire planet.

(We have) millions of users, companies like John Deere, Caterpillar Trimble, and many others in the commercial and government that that our users are working with today. That network today is 66 satellites. It’s built for on the move applications as well as static applications.

ABG: Can you tell us how it works?

GM: There are multiple satellites. They’re always moving, and they’re overlapping every part of the planet. This is a built-in resiliency and redundancy that ensures that the farmers or any user that, they’re connected to their equipment in the field, their people, their applications anywhere, anytime.

So, the application on the ground be a combine, sensor or irrigation system would have an Iridium transceiver built into it. That transceiver would be sending messages, whether it’s voice or IP or data to one of the 66 satellites moving overhead, which then gets transmitted to one of our ground stations into a gateway and then out to the world. That happens very fast, really, in the blink of an eye.

ABG: On your website, I saw a SpaceX launch that looked pretty cool. It must be fun to see your own satellites get launched into space, into the stratosphere. Actually, I guess it’s beyond the stratosphere, right? Should have paid better attention in science class.

GM: It’s pretty neat. In fact, I was at that launch when it occurred. We were launching an extra set of spare satellites that we had to an additional layer of redundancy to our network. So, we have a lot of components in place that serve as backup. And so that was like a launch to further enhance that capability.

ABG: Obviously you were involved in a lot of different markets. How did you get involved in agriculture? Did (companies involved in) agriculture say, ‘Hey, this is that we can use,’ and they came to you?

GM: Well, you know we’re in the connectivity business, and it turns out that only 15% of the globe is covered by cellular signals. So, there’s a whole lot of the earth that has no connectivity.

Coverage in agriculture is more important than people realize. There’s a promise now, technology that will allow growers to increase, yields and lower the cost. But you have to be able to connect to the Internet or the cloud to make this all work. So, we realize we can help bridge that gap, the gap being a lack of that adequate cell coverage.

To do that, we’re actively working with farm equipment, OEMs and providers of other technology to invent our transceivers into the products so the farmer can use that technology where the farm is not just for cell coverage is present.

ABG: You mentioned connectivity; you mentioned John Deere; you mentioned Trimble. Certainly, some companies that our listeners are going to be familiar with. What are some of those challenges for the farmers themselves that they need this type of network, this type of connectivity to be able to run their operations more efficiently.

GM: From my perspective being in the business, it’s really about having an adequate connection. In the farm world you don’t have to go very far off the road, off the Interstate to realize there’s no connectivity at the farm. So that’s the challenge I’m hearing. The pace at which this technology is coming out to improve the farm operation is really stunning. But you’ve got to be connected.

And I think most of these applications first launch to do cellular because it’s easier. People know it, but then they learn that it doesn’t go far enough.

They’ll come back to us and work with us to integrate this connectivity. So that product could be truly global.

ABG: Okay, I live in northeast Ohio, in a suburban area. I have a great signal, and sometimes I don’t. S0, I can only imagine that on a farm out in the middle of nowhere, relatively speaking, that they can have some signal connectivity issues.

GM: Cell networks are very expensive to build. And for the sales companies you have to have a dense enough population to make it worthwhile. So, you can imagine why rural communities and farming communities technically don’t have very good coverage. Think about it like a cell phone, the way we’re engineered/structured, it’s like potentially having 5 bars of service, no matter where you are.

ABG: That would be nice. I think I should talk to my cellular provider if I can get that in my own apartment here. The technology. You mentioned the Internet of Things you mentioned John Deere again, their machinery – all the different devices that are now used on a farm. We’ve written many stories about precision agriculture and the technology in these machines. How does your satellite network help manage all that technology, that information?

GM: If you think about it, we’re basically like an enabler. The technology is there. But again, it’s not going to do you a lot of good if you can’t connect. So, we’re that layer that adds to the technology to make it more functional. Now we’re not there to replace the cellular signal. We’re there to augment it, to sit side-by-side with it. There’s plenty of parts of the planet where we might be the only signal by which a technology could work. But there are also plenty of parts where you would use both. Use cellular when cellular is available and the technology switch to satellite when there’s no cell signal inadequate cell signal, or as a backup, or what have you. So, it’s really again about expanding the reach. So you could use technology where you want to be and not worry about the limits of the cellular footprint.

ABG: Okay. So, one of the things that you talked about when we were doing a little research earlier is the limitations to cell signals. You’ve mentioned a couple of times. That’s kind of when your solution kicks in. Am I saying that correctly.

GM: That’s correct. I mean, it’s ultimately up to the technology provider on the logic that they would build into it when to switch and what to send. But that’s essentially it. Basically, if you have something that needs to connect, then that’s a use case for where we would play.

When you think about autonomy, which is the buzzword now in agriculture, that’s even more relevant. You can’t afford to have a single stream connection. If that connection goes down, what happens to your autonomy?

Even in cases where we’re unique – this is the way our system is engineered. Other satellite providers, for example, you might physically be blocked by a barn or another piece of equipment, or a hill or something, and then you would lose that autonomous connection.

That doesn’t happen the way our satellite network is engineered. if you block to say in the south, or satellites to the east or north might pick up the transceiver and continue to stay connected. So that’s very, very relevant in terms of the capability. Most people don’t think about that sort of thing. They just think, ‘Oh, you just turn it on, and it connects.’ No, you have to have the right kind of system that allows you to use it in any direction, in any location on the planet.

ABG: And that all happen seamlessly?

GM: Completely, seamlessly. One of the beauties of the network is that the signal’s the same everywhere, too, because of the global nature and the way the satellites are moving; they’re moving about 17,000 miles an hour overhead.

The signal, in say, Des Moines, Iowa. is the same as it is in the North Pole. It’s the same as it is in Kansas, but it is anywhere on the planet. So that means the antennas, the transceivers, the power requirements – everything is exactly the same, which makes deployment much easier. They don’t have to think about, ‘Well, this solution in Asia has to be different than the solution in Europe, which is different than in North America. It makes life a lot easier.

ABG: This may be something that you addressed, or it is maybe not even an issue for your organization, because of the way you’re set up. We’ve written a lot of stories about John Deere having a solution, and another company has a solution. A third company has a different solution, and they’re all proprietary. Is that an issue for your satellites? Can they work with any technology, or does it have to be integrated into the plan?

GM: So, we work with the technology provider. So, they would integrate our transceivers into their solution. We’ll work on an (with any equipment). The technology’s universal in the sense that it will work with anybody else’s system.

Now, it doesn’t mean that you could take our transceiver and work on somebody else’s satellite link in the same way a Verizon phone won’t work on an AT&T network. But we can be integrated in just about anybody’s technology.

ABG: This might be getting a little into the weeds here. But let me ask you this. Since our listeners are mostly the providers of crop inputs, the products farmers are using to protect and grow their crops. How can this technology be used to manage those crop inputs more efficiently?

GM: Again, back to the concept of being an enabler. The solutions out there are already doing that for the customer, but if you can’t connect, it’s just a just a paperweight.

So, we team with these OEMs. I have meetings all the time, year-round, with various technology providers to talk about adding us into their solution so it can be used everywhere. So, the promise technology brings is higher crop yields and less hours (working in the field), and so forth, is there. And we’re helping to make that more of a reality for more people and more farmers, not just the ones that happen to have good cell coverage.

ABG: Does the grower come to your company or is it the OEM? This is your is your customer, and they use it as a selling feature for their customers? They have access to this network that will never be out of range.

GM: Yeah, It’s really in a couple of ways. So, we’re primarily a solution provider to the John Deeres, the AGCOs, and the Valmonts of the world. They come to us, or I go to them and seek them and say, ‘Hey, this is something you can add, which can, really expand your reach.’

In some cases, the customer doesn’t even know Iridium satellites are on there because it should matter. They just are connecting. It doesn’t matter to the person on their cell, and it might be baked into the service plan or the maintenance plan on a piece of heavy equipment, for example.

At other times it might be a line in, but that’s up to the technology provider, and how they want to go to the market. We also have where we started our business with satellite phones. That’s still a huge part of our business – very important – and will always be part of our business that is available at retailers across the globe should somebody want a dedicated satellite phone.

There’s also a new level of technology beyond phones built by people like Garmin and ZOLEO that allow you to integrate your Android or Apple phone to that device you might carry on hip or backpack or something, and allow you to set, send, and receive text messages or send your location. A lot of these devices have SOS buttons built in, which for a lone worker or somebody out in the field, in terms of work for safety, getting injured or something you’ll hit an SOS button and again not worry about cell coverage and whether or not the S.O.S. is going to go through.

That’s a more consumer-oriented type of prepackaged solution. But through dozens and dozens of the retailers with online and the brick and mortar.

ABG: Okay, back to the farming operations, the day-to-day farming. Where does this satellite fit in? We’ve talked a little bit about this, but if you could just sort of expand on that a little bit.

GM: Well, the satellite fits into both those levels. It could be a small operation that just needs to be able to communicate to workers in the field. And then maybe a sat phone is all that’s needed for that. If you’re using hardware that is built in, they may or may not know what’s there for delivering value. Imagine you have an AGCO tractor. Typically, what they’re doing is predictive maintenance. And being able to understand the health of their machine, you don’t want a machine going down in the middle of harvest. AGCO service knows what type of machine (it is) and be able to fix that problem before you get to harvest.

Imagine the payback in a scenario like that … being able to solve that problem before you lose it in a day or two of harvest.

Center pivots are another example. We have some center pivot companies. Being able to control the center pivot without having to drive out to it.

ABG: Satellites are obviously not easily accessible, once they’re up there. And technology is changing constantly. We keep hearing about precision agriculture and all the tools and software that are available. So if the satellite needs to be updated, or unfortunately, if something goes wrong with it, how easy they are to fix from down here?

GM: Well, we have 66 active satellites. And now, with the launch, we just had recently added five extra spare satellites. We have 14 spare satellites already in orbit that are just sitting there. In the unlikely event, something catastrophic happens to one satellite, we can float one into that spot pretty quickly. Fortunately, the way our network is designed. let’s say satellite to the west of you went dark the satellite to the east of you or to north or the south is probably going to pick you up fairly quickly. And chances are as a user, you might not even notice there was an outage. And in a couple of days, we’d float in that replacement to fill the gap. So, that it is something pretty creative on our part, that’s added a level of resiliency and redundancy that a lot of others can’t deliver.

We see that that a lot of others can’t deliver (that level of connection). But you’re also right. Once the satellite launches, you can’t run a truck up there to replace a transceiver or bolt on a new transmitter, but that doesn’t stop us from innovating. All the time we are launching new features and new capabilities that don’t require us to touch the physical satellite.

We have 500 partners out there of various types of service providers, technology people who integrate our transceivers into their product so they can design the product specifically for their customer set, so that innovation will continue, and in about a dozen years or so we will do a complete refresh and launch a whole new set of satellites down the road, which will then bring many more multiples of capability that aren’t there today. So, on one hand the redundancy part it’s like self-healing. And on the other end the innovation continues on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis. But I want to talk for a minute about that redundancy. Just a few months ago — and it’s something people don’t think about till it’s a problem – just a few months ago a major provider lost their satellite over Asia Pacific for several days. Farmers in that region – we’re talking Australia, New Zealand, and all of Asia, they’re used to using precision planning. They’re used to using auto steering and things that nature. Those functions were gone because that system wasn’t a redundant system.

That’s not something that we worry about on our system because again, if one satellite went out those on the ground probably wouldn’t notice. Another satellite can deliver that service.

ABG: Interesting. Moving forward you mentioned low-earth orbit satellites vs. the geosynchronous satellites – the ones that are really high up and stationary (over a spot on the earth). Is it a cost thing, or is it that interconnectivity that you mentioned? What? What is the purpose of having the lower ones versus the ones that are higher and cover more area.

GM: Well, yeah, the Geo providers, which stands for geosynchronous. They don’t need as many satellites, but they’re much bigger and much more expensive satellites, but it’s really (about) different kinds of missions. If you remember the old days of ‘live via satellite’ – those are the old-fashioned geo satellites.

But they do have some inherent problems. They’re 22,000 miles above the equator. So, they’re very, very high latency. LEO, which is low earth we’re only about 476 miles in altitude. That’s 40 times closer to the surface of the Earth.

So, in terms of signal latency, it’s almost non-existent, especially compared to GEO. The other problem with GEO is that they tend not to be redundant as the example I just gave you about the other provider in Asia. When they went dark, they were just out of service for several days and they could be physically blocked with the curvature of the earth and further away from the equator. There’re more physical things that can block your antenna from reaching the satellite and reaching the signal. If you’re parked up next to a barn or dense forest or a hill, geography of some sort. And the only way to resolve that is not to be blocked. The tractor has to be in view of the satellite, and only in view to the south (for those north of the equator). You have to clear view. We’re engineered very differently. We work with any view to the sky. So if you’re blocked on one side by a barn, it doesn’t matter.

The other feature we have is something we call Cross Links. All our satellites are connected to each other.

Let’s say there was something wrong with one of our ground stations. Well, the satellite recognizes that ground station’s out, and it will send it over that cross link to another satellite and bring that signal down to a different ground station. Again, the user wouldn’t even notice it.

It’s a redundant system whether it’s a problem on the ground or a problem space. To the user, they have no idea it’s happening. They’re still getting their signal. Their autonomy is still working. The ability to collect the data off the sensor, turn on or off a water pivot. It goes uninterrupted.

ABG: Very good. I think I’ve gone through most of my questions here. What else do we need to know? What didn’t I ask you about?

GM: It’s an exciting time in agriculture. I go to a lot of events. And talking to a lot of these OEMs about the future and about building in the capabilities, and we’re having a good success there, and I think it’ll be you’ll see us embedded in more and more equipment as time goes by. So, I bring hope for the future. I think this enablement capability is going to change lives at the end of the day.

ABG: Great. Thank you very much for your time.

GM: My pleasure.

ABG: If somebody wanted to learn more about the company, where can they go? Who should they reach out to?

GM: Well, they could reach out to me. I am our specialist in agriculture and agrobusiness. They can always go to the Iridium website (iridium.com), and there is a tab on business that describes all kinds of things we talked about, and there are links on there they could fill out and request more information, and I would then get in contact with them.