Deere Involved In Bandwidth Fight

Des Moines Register:

After focusing on moving earth for agriculture and industry for most of its 174-year history, Deere & Co. now is fighting for its place in the skies.

Deere Chairman and CEO Samuel Allen has aligned the manufacturer with military and aviation interests against a broadband proposal by Virginia-based LightSquared. Allen said LightSquared's proposal for 40,000 new cellphone towers in rural areas would push the global-positioning systems in farmers' tractors and combines farther down the band, compromising movements across the fields. "It's not a money issue for us; we contract with GPS providers," Allen said. "But precision agriculture is vital."

LightSquared has said it would resolve potential interference for most GPS users.

The Federal Communications Commission is due to report on the matter later this summer, but Allen thinks ultimately Congress will make the final call.

This is an interesting fight.  While GPS has come a long way in the ag field, there's still a lot of room for improvement.  A fight for bandwidth should be pretty interesting.