MINING NETWORKS & CONNECTIVITY
Paul Moore spoke to Stephane Daeuble, Head of Enterprise
Solutions Marketing at Nokia, to get a better understanding
of the significance of 5G SA for the mining and METS
industry when compared to other 5G solutions as well as LTE
Q Is 5G SA essentially a scaled down, trial or smaller version of a full 5G
network or just this represent the first full rollout of 5G for industry from
Nokia?
A 5G based on 3GPP R15 came in two architectural flavours. The first called
5G non-standalone (NSA), came earlier in the standard and was designed
for CSPs to quickly adopt 5G, by relying on the LTE architecture (and LTE for
uplink) and just adding 5G radio. The second called 5G standalone (SA), is
what some people call the “real 5G” with a full 5G core architecture, and
that will form the baseline for future 5G innovations linked to industrial
needs coming in later releases (R16, 17, etc). 5G SA is best for enterprise as
they do not have to deploy LTE and 5G, find spectrum for both, the uplink
channel is really on 5G, etc…and it is the architecture that they will need for
the future to benefit from 5G innovation.
its use cases). The exception is the manufacturing space, particularly
automotive manufacturing, which has quite a few existing and new use
cases that need 5G. Since the majority of industrial segment use cases
work fine on 4.9G (mining is an example), there is a very healthy ecosystem
of devices/assets/machines that support LTE (eg Komatsu), and available
spectrum for private 4.9G, etc. We believe starting with private 4.9G will
continue to make sense until we are further down the standardisation
timeline for 5G, and a healthy industrial ecosystem exists. The last
important point is that 4.9G/5G are part of the same family of technologies.
Private 4.9G networks sold today by Nokia are 5G ready, hence can easily
be upgrade to 5G when needed and the time is right (ecosystem,
standards, etc).
Last point to consider, and to explain why Nokia is announcing
commercial 5G SA private wireless solution, is that there are also a few
markets, that have 5G vertical spectrum and not 4.9G spectrum. As a result,
it makes sense for them to start early. And finally many ecosystem players
want to start to test/validate 5G technology early to embed it into their
future solutions to build a healthy ecosystem of 5G connected assets.
Q Because 5G has some advantages over LTE/4.9G, is it now more logical
for mines wanting to invest in new networks to bypass LTE and go straight
to 5G?
A Investment timeline is a decision that has many factors. 5G is surely the
technology of the future, but it is also still early days: 5G standards are still
a work in process– the full industrial features set will come with R18
(standardisation planned for 2023) and some IoT capabilities like LTE-
M/NB-IoT for low power, high battery life sensors will need LTE/4.9G until
R18. Because of this, the 5G ecosystem is still in development; meaning
you will be only able currently to implement a few use cases. With Nokia 5G
SA, it’s a big step forward in stimulating the ecosystem to build use cases,
as it provides a commercial platform upon which to develop them. Then,
you need to consider your operation and use cases, and whether they need
5G or not. Today the vast majority of industrial segment use cases are
totally fine with LTE/4.9G (as that networking supports in excess of 85% of
Q Is it fair to say that this is not the first 5G offering available to mining
companies – as an example Huawei has announced the installation of a
number of 5G networks in both surface and underground mines?
A Nokia has already been shipping private wireless systems for quite a
while based on 5G, but as per explanation above it was based on 5G NSA
and not 5G SA. This time, we are talking about 5G SA – and we are the first
with commercial industrial-grade private wireless solutions. Nokia has
more than 180 private wireless enterprise customers worldwide, of which
more than 30 engagements are 5G.
Q In a recent webinar Komatsu and Nokia mentioned that 5G will be tested
at Komatsu’s Arizona Proving Ground, will this also be a 5G SA network?
A The customer is indeed looking at 5G, but details cannot be disclosed at
this moment. The 5G discussion with mining customers and partners is
oriented to be SA in place.
complement to LTE, Fluidmesh offers a solid
private network able to deliver Distribution and
Access layers to trailers and vehicles in open pit
mines. Thanks to its MPLS-based protocol Cisco
can now merge the benefits of high-throughput
and low-latency, enabling new mission-critical
applications such as AHS, ADS, tele-remote, FMS
dispatch and control at a new level, and offering a
full end-to-end fixed and nomadic network to their
clients in this and many other industries.”
Komatsu and Nokia talk networks and
AHS
A recent webinar from Nokia and Komatsu Mining
entitled Making Autonomous Haulage Systems a
Reality covered how industrial-grade private LTE
wireless networks are powering mining
innovation, specifically looking at AHS, while
including an update from Komatsu on its AHS
progress and its preference for LTE over WiFi
backed up with specific cases, as well as
discussing in some detail how the two companies
have been and will be working together.
Jaime Laguna Ramirez, Nokia Global Practice
Segment Leader for Oil & Gas and Mining said
that asset intensive industries like mining are
pushing the convergence of IT and OT as key
elements like intelligent analytics, AI and machine
learning systems are demanding high bandwith,
low latency and massive connectivity. He added
that Industry 4.0 is making mining safer, more
efficient and more productive. Efficiency is
increasing wth process automation, with
increased agility to meet fast changing
requirements. It also allows for better decision
making via intelligent insights while increasing
worker safety and productivity. Lastly there is
undoubtedly a sustainability factor as the greater
efficiency helps lower environmental impact. All
this while maintaining asset heavy industries
“must have” needs of continuous operations with
multiple redundancies & mission critical
performance, efficiency/safety relying on
coordination between multiple physical assets at
work sites and in the field and security, while
having the flexibility to react to change. Nokia is a
mission critical telecoms companies that has been
able to work with miners to fully understand how
connectivity fits in with all of these needs. Nokia
also quickly realised the importance of
interoperability and working directly with key
industry technology suppliers like Komatsu.
Digitalisation and automation are now filtering
through the whole mining process from data
enabled exploration to the construction supply
chain, integrated drill and blast with AHS fleets,
fully integrated mine to plant processing, product
delivery logistics and end to end asset
management, to the point where Bell Labs
Consulting has estimated that automation in total
is now having an average 17.2% positive effect on
mining productivity, with AHS fleets alone
accounting for 5.5% of this.
Laguna Ramirez admitted that wired networks
will continue to play their part in certain areas, but
argues that adapted WiFi systems that have met
needs until now will not be able to meet future
needs in reliability, security and performance. In
industrial wireless terms, Nokia says the choice
can make or break a mine’s journey to digital
transformation. P2MP networks are one option but
Nokia argues that they have disadvantages like
low scalability, non-Cloud management/operation,
relatively low availability (95.5%), resiliency and
reliability and using a proprietary vendor lock in
28 International Mining | SEPTEMBER 2020