OceanWaves: Why aren’t ports 100% digitally connected?

BIOS: Scott’s company, QuayChain Technologies, provides secure software, devices and advanced wireless connectivity to intermodal logistics ecosystems. At the Utah Inland Port Authority, Hedge is building a sustainable intermodal logistics hub that will help prepare and manage Utah’s continuing economic growth. 

The Utah Inland Port Authority and QuayChain Technologies recently announced they are in the process of building out the first private supply chain LTE/5G network. The system will be completed by the end of 2021.

KEY QUOTES FROM SCOTT:

“I think we have all in our industry experienced trying to explain to people how we can see our $6 toy dog ball that we ordered on Amazon be tracked to our front door, but our half-a-million-dollar container coming out of a port, we don’t see for multiple days.”

“We talk a lot about Utah and the Golden Spike, where the rail came together in the United States, and that changed the economy 150 years ago. We hope that the [LTE/5G network] in Utah will be this digital spike, with how we can connect the West Coast ports to the rest of the country digitally.”

KEY QUOTES FROM HEDGE:

“One of the things that we’re hearing, and this is a frustration in seaports and this is a frustration at the inland ports as well, that these areas are black holes. So they don’t have access to data, they can’t know where their things are. Even if they are getting [electronic data exchange] feeds, that’s not in real time.”

“This [5G network] is just the next leg under the table of infrastructure. By utilizing this infrastructure, we’re actually creating capacity in the system, that ability to be more fluid with our goods movement and be more rapid. It adds capability and capacity in the system that otherwise would require additional roads and rail and things like that.”

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