Comsol, in collaboration with Ericsson and many other original equipment manufacturers, has conducted a first-of-its-kind proof of concept (PoC) for a large worldwide mining business, demonstrating that a Comsol-delivered Ericsson Private 5G network supposedly outperforms the hype around 5G.
Even in difficult conditions, the initial deployment is said to have exceeded expectations in terms of latency, quality of service, and novel smart mining applications.
Comsol engineers tested numerous 5G apps linked to a private network on-site.
“We wanted to mimic worst-case scenarios, so we tested the network over nonline of sight, near nonline of sight, and pure line of sight conditions,” said the executive of private networks at Comsol, Gary Woolley.
The PoC tested a variety of 5G devices against business-critical use cases, including simultaneous video calls between three mining vehicles, a remote connected worker, and a supervisor at the central command station—in conditions where a traditional cellphone call would be difficult.
Woolley added, “We were spot on with our RF propagation planning, which proved that high-quality voice and video communication was supported even in worst-case scenarios. The non-line of sight connection at around one km exceeded our expectations, where we had a connected worker using augmented reality, voice, and video with a consistent, high-quality connection despite the presence of a lot of trees and minerals in the environment.
“The voice and data quality was exceptional, showing that multiple use cases can coexist in a dynamic environment. We were getting close to 80 Mbps of uplink capacity, which is important for industrial productivity, data analysis, and health and safety use cases.”
Todd Ashton, the head of Ericsson South and East Africa at Ericsson Middle East and Africa, said that the collaboration with Comsol produced good results, reinforcing the idea that a private cellular network had the greatest potential to revolutionise mining operations.
“Collaboration with Comsol produced good results, reinforcing the idea that a private cellular network had the greatest potential to revolutionise mining operations,” commented Ashton.
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