CASE STUDY requirements were projected to skyrocket from 3 Mbps to 320 Mbps with the introduction of new equipment.
Solution Highlights
Ericsson’ s private cellular network helps Newmont achieve its worker safety goals by providing predictable performance for automated mining technology and by moving wireless networking equipment and technicians out of the hazardous pit area.
Newmont replaced Lihir’ s aging Wi-Fi network with a high-capacity private cellular network powered by Ericsson technology. The advanced network met stringent smart-mining performance and scalability requirements, enabling Newmont to support high volumes of bandwidth-intensive, delay-sensitive vehicle and machine traffic and achieve its nil-onbench, nil-on-foot objectives.
Radio network
• Ericsson private 4G radio network
Core network
• Ericsson private 4G / 5G core network
Network management
• Ericsson Core Network Operations Manager
Professional services
• Design and configuration services from Ericsson including pre-deployment testing
• Design, work instruction creation, and network integration and optimization services from Ericsson systems integration partner Telstra
Solution advantages
• Significantly greater capacity and throughput to satisfy increased traffic demands
• Predictable performance to support production-critical workloads
• Extended range to improve safety, expand coverage, and eliminate costly trailer replacements
• Extendable hardware supports 4G and 5G for seamless and cost-effective upgrades
To enhance worker safety, Newmont instituted a“ nilon-bench, nil-on-foot” strategy to reduce the number of workers on a bench and eliminate workers on foot. The mine operator planned to introduce remotely controlled drills, shovels and dozers to keep people out of harm’ s way – but the increased application traffic would have overwhelmed Lihir’ s capacity-constrained Wi-Fi network.
The legacy network was already underperforming, impairing the operation of the mine’ s haul fleet and dispatch management system. And bandwidth
The private cellular network significantly boosted network capacity, providing an order of magnitude increase in both uplink speeds and downlink speeds throughout the mine.
The new cellular network also extended wireless coverage to the mine’ s processing plant, other areas of the island and out to sea to reach transport barges.
Remote control systems for heavy machinery that sat idle beyond the reach of the legacy Wi-Fi network became operable with the improved connectivity.
The network immediately resolved the performance issues with the mine’ s haul truck fleet and dispatch management system. It eliminated the high latency and packet loss that were impairing fleet efficiency and it dramatically reduced no talks and missed beacons that were impacting the fleet management system and hindering operations.
The network also supported Newmont’ s strategic safety objectives by removing networking equipment and technicians from the pit; the Ericsson cellular radio towers are deployed outside of the active mining area.
“ We had several dozen the active pit, removing and realigning the trailers, checking the battery, or performing other operations,” said Twaddle.
“ The cellular network alleviates those safety concerns by keeping the networking gear and the technicians out of the pit.”
Additionally, the new network reduces maintenance expenses by relocating the radio equipment away from the corrosive environment of the island’ s pit area. Previously, Newmont had to regularly repair and replace expensive Wi-Fi trailers that rusted in severe pit conditions.
The cellular deployment also streamlines ongoing network engineering and frees up valuable resources by eliminating time-consuming Wi-Fi mesh network reconfiguration and troubleshooting tasks. p
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