Angus Council is taking part in a project to use farm buildings as foundations for masts to provide wireless broadband connectivity around the county.
It is working with wireless solutions provider Rapier Systems and internet of things (IoT) specialist SmartRural on a proof of concept project covering 100 square miles in a triangle between the towns of Brechin, Montrose and Arbroath.
Installations of fixed wireless access technology are scheduled for 22 farms to begin before Easter and be complete by the third quarter of the year, with the potential to extend the scheme around the county if it proves successful.
The project also involves installations at rural primary schools in the county, reflecting the council’s priorities of providing them with high speed connectivity.
A LORAWAN aerial mounted within a farm steading FARM SENSOR technology is the focus of the latest digital farm pilot project from SmartRural. A subsidiary of co-op umbrella organisation, SAOS, the SmartRural project aims to demonstrate how readily available, cost-effective, digital tools can gather and use data from around even the most remote farms, to inform decision making, manage risk, and improve operations and outcomes. Its proprietary LoRaWAN network is a radio communication system which receives data from simple, battery-powered sensors up to 15km away, through a base station installed on a farm building. The data is then fed back through the internet to where it can be used by software to help farmers make more informed decisions in a wide variety of ways.