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Verizon partners with Monarch Tractors to enhance connectivity

Verizon Business and Monarch Tractors have announced a strategic partnership supporting connectivity needs of farmers using the autonomous tractor.

Dave Hickey is the Vice President of West Business Markets for Verizon Business.

“Connectivity is a big deal regardless if you’re in some of these major cities or in rural America,” he says. “This is about how do we take this autonomous fully electric tractor and then also bring in some of the technology that they’re trying to do.”

He tells Brownfield Verizon Business has created a SIM card installed in the tractors to connect with their wireless networks and Monarch’s Wingspan Ag Intelligence platform.

Hickey says the company also is exploring other options to work with agriculture partners, especially as AI technology and data needs expand.

“Whether you’re Monarch or another farming facility out there, we can bring coverage to you and enable that through different methods, whether that be private networks, whether it be base station methodology or simply as just providing connectivity into a tractor through a SIM, different routers and different opportunities.

The MK-V tractors can qualify for USDA Natural Resources Environmental Quality Incentive Program, or EQIP, funding and are currently manufactured in Ohio.

AUDIO: Dave Hickey, Verizon Business