Jim is the general manager of Green Country Farms, in Westville, Oklahoma. The company has 154 chicken houses across 16 farms.
Jim will be the first to tell you that raising chickens is an increasingly high-tech business. Temperature, water, feed and other conditions in chicken houses are monitored and controlled by networked devices — all of which depend on a reliable connection.
Before OzarksGo (a subsidiary internet provider of Ozarks Electric Cooperative and a Cooperative Broadband Coalition member) brought fiber connectivity to the area, Jim had to use dial-up. Internet speeds were slow, functionality was limited and he could only connect from the company office.
Now, Jim can see detailed data for each chicken house with a few taps on his smartphone, making chicken check-ins a breeze.
“It’s very handy to be able to do that,” he said. “If someone’s having a little bit of a problem at night when I’m at home, I can pull it up and see what’s happening.”
