How to Keep 'Em Down on the Farm? Faster Internet

Mediacom has announced an initiative with Deere & Co. (better known as John Deere) to bring high-speed broadband to Iowa farms. The initiative is part of an umbrella Mediacom Business initiative called Transforming the Midwest into the "Silicon Prairie." The announcement was made by Dan Templin, senior vice president of Mediacom Business, during the 2014 Connect Iowa Broadband Summit, a conference encompassing broadband efforts across Iowa, including agriculture, legislation and community planning.

Templin noted that although modern farming equipment is increasingly capable of real-time machine-to-machine interaction and data sharing, much of Iowa's cropland lacks the broadband access necessary for this type of communication. To address the access issue, Mediacom Business and John Deere filed a joint expression of interest with the FCC outlining a plan to drive fiber networks deeper into rural Iowa and connect the entirely of commercial farming operations with wireless broadband services.