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Producer's Gin >>
Producer's Gin Keeps on Ginning with HughesNet Business Internet Service
High speeds and always-on connectivity have helped this regional cotton gin produce more than 30,000 bales of cotton per year.
As a company that processes and sells cotton, Theodore, Alabama-based Producer's Gin Co. relies on regular electronic communication with the USDA and the transmission of electronic warehouse receipts—two tasks that had proved to be almost impossible for a company using a dial-up Internet connection.
To rectify its slow connection speeds and avoid any fines from the USDA, Producer's Gin decided to upgrade its service to satellite broadband from Hughes. Producer's Gin selected HughesNet Business Internet service to ensure that its growing business would have consistent, high-quality connectivity and enterprise-grade equipment—despite being beyond the reach of cable or DSL.
The Gin Gets Going
In 1994, a group of enterprising Alabama cotton farmers, who were tired of traveling long distances to get their harvest processed, hatched the plans for Producer's Gin. The nine original owners then opened their own local gin in 1995, and keeping with tradition, did all their business by hand—both in the field and in the back office.
Back then, each time a bale of cotton was ginned and produced, it was given a number and paper receipt to represent the gin’s ownership. Once the bale was sold, the receipt was sent to the customer using the U.S. Postal Service or a private mailing service.
Georgi Starr, Producer's Gin office manager, notes that “not only was it unnecessarily time consuming to hand write or type each receipt, but every day we ran the risk of having the record lost in the mail. Since the receipts are treated like real money, we couldn’t afford to have them misplaced.” To solve some of their record keeping problems, Producer's Gin finally went electronic in 2001.
Dialing Off, Not Up
Since Producer's Gin is in a rural part of the state without access to DSL or cable, they initially settled for a dial-up Internet connection to transmit receipts electronically. But trying to do business over a phone line with speeds of only about 12 kbps proved impossible.
Starr became so tired of waiting to download and upload that she knew a change had to be made. “On dial-up, it would regularly take us three days to transmit a receipt and the file transfer would usually end up timing-out. So not only did we tie up our phone line, but we risked getting written up and fined by the USDA if we couldn’t transmit properly.”
She continued, “Our speeds were so slow after Hurricane Katrina that, to get work done, I actually had to put everything on a disk and drive to the house of a friend who had DSL. We were even issued a warning by the USDA because of late transmissions. That’s when I realized we needed a change if we wanted to stay in business.”
Getting Up to Speed
Since Producer's Gin is beyond the reach of cable and DSL, Starr researched other options for connectivity that would fit within their budget and give them the speed they needed. She found a solution in broadband satellite Internet. The first provider she went with, however, made life harder, not easier.
“Our first experience with satellite Internet was all about being on the phone with their customer service department. Our connection was slow, we had countless outages, and everyone here was getting frustrated with paying for something that simply wasn’t working,” said Starr.
So she went back to the drawing board, spoke to a few friends, and decided to look into HughesNet after hearing about the high-quality service from a local farmer. Just to be sure, Starr spent three months researching HughesNet, had a number of conversations with their sales team, and, in June 2008, ultimately decided to purchase HughesNet Business Internet service.
Starr noted that one thing that drove her to choose HughesNet was the proven success of Hughes in bringing broadband solutions to a wide range of customers, from Fortune 500 companies to consumers/small businesses, like her neighbors. “One of the benefits of HughesNet small business offerings is they are specially geared toward the agriculture, manufacturing, and other industries, so I knew they’d satisfy my business needs.”
Hughes—A Proven Provider
Aside from the proven record of Hughes serving customers ranging from large corporations to small family farms and individual consumers, Starr says she was drawn by their customer service and the variety of HughesNet service plans offered for growing businesses like hers.
“With our first satellite provider, the only option we had was one service plan—which was actually more than we needed in terms of speeds and price,” said Starr. Unlike some other satellite services, HughesNet spans a wide range of broadband offerings designed to help businesses adapt to their marketplace, including private networks and backup solutions to help them stay online, no matter where they’re located.
There are seven HughesNet Business Internet plans to choose from, starting at only $59.99/month, with the highest speed plan offering downloads up to 5 Mbps. Flexible billing plans are available, and there is the option to instantly upgrade as the business grows.
Better Business, More Bales
Today, Starr claims that she can process an electronic warehouse receipt (EWR) in three seconds instead of three days. And that’s a good thing, because as a medium-sized production facility, Producer's Gin now processes more than 30,000 bales (and receipts) per year, drawing in freshly picked cotton from farms as far away as 150 miles.
“Since demand for our services has gone up, HughesNet has been a big help,” said Starr. “We haven’t had any problems with outages or slow connectivity and have actually seen our business operations streamlined because of the satellite service.”
Having a reliable satellite broadband service has allowed Producer's Gin to receive more shipping orders, create and transfer more receipts, and download more software updates than ever before.
“Without HughesNet satellite broadband, we simply wouldn’t be in business,” said Starr.
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