NBN Co is planning on developing a Quality Assurance Mark. This is for network extension devices to support agricultural IoT and in-paddock connectivity. It is also for the sort of assessment criteria that would underpin it.

NBN Co said that it believes the quality mark will help workers in the agriculture sector, including farmers, to understand the opportunity to extend the coverage of their home-based NBN network connection to their farm machinery, buildings, and wider landscape “with confidence”. This was revealed in a discussion paper targeting the agriculture sector. 

The paper also highlighted that the quality mark will prove to be beneficial for consumers in making more informed decisions, particularly when selecting the infrastructure necessary to extend connectivity beyond the farmhouse and into the paddock.

In this case, the companies that want to have their devices carry the mark will be required to supply a device for independent, third-party verification and testing. “Costs for the external testing may or may not be recovered from the product vendor, this will be determined at a later stage in the development of the mark,” stated NBN. NBN Co said that it will explore how a product could potentially carry the mark. Apart from the requirements for independent testing and verification, some other requirements may adhere to branding criteria. NBN may establish the latter.

With this mark, consumers will potentially have a visual cue about the device's capability. The visual mark can be a colour code and/or rating based on a series of criteria about the device. The mark may also include independently-assessing devices used in the extension, repeating, or meshing of private network connections in agricultural settings.

Products that might be connected to the router or modem via an Ethernet cable may bear the quality mark in the future. In this case, the cable is the one responsible for enabling the extension of the signal beyond any home-based WiFi capability of a residential-grade router or modem.

According to the NBN, the quality mark will complement its existing suite of digital capacity-building tools, including Online Skills Check and Resources that enable an individual to assess their digital capability and the Federal Government’s Digital Readiness Assessment Tool. It will also complement AgTech Finder, an initiative of the Food Agility CRC (Australia’s most comprehensive AgTech database featuring products and companies servicing broadacre, livestock, and horticulture).