NETWORKS & COMMS
Private wireless networks – including now 5G – are becoming the connectivity heart of more and more mines, as the use cases continue to rise, from AI to AHS. Paul Moore reports
Nokia was something of a trailblazer when it deployed the first major private wireless network at a mine with Rio Tinto in Australia in 2011 – and since then it has grown this business into one of the largest private LTE / 4G providers in global mining, and one that is now routinely used for a large number of mines running autonomous haulage fleets.
At the Mobile World Congress earlier this year in Barcelona, IM Editorial Director Paul Moore met with Stephane Daeuble, Nokia Head of Solution Marketing – Enterprise Solutions to try to understand how the private wireless network market is evolving in mining, not just the networks themselves but also what they can enable and enhance.
Daeuble:“ About seven years ago, we realised that at most major mines with private wireless networks, we had everything including people and machines largely connected. We were carrying the data and the system had been proven time and time again to be reliable. And we had a platform that was receiving all of that data – so we thought why not go beyond just the private wireless itself. The first thing we do when we go into a mine is put a server there to run our core network. We have effectively transformed that into a computing platform for use cases. We call this our mission critical industrial edge – our core was already built to be reliable and with high availability and with this increasing CPU power we realised we could run other things as well.”
This on premises edge still has the wireless connectivity at heart, but for example Nokia have also added WiFi at a number of sites as it is useful to have that extra capacity, plus it has developed MX Boost which allows it to aggregate WiFi together with 4G and 5G to make it more
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Business critical connectivity
reliable.“ We have also developed a range of devices; as many devices talk different languages to normal IP networks – we wanted to have this extra ability to be able to ensure quality connections and give us the ability to talk to different automation layer 2 protocols such as PROFINET, EtherNET etc. We can also use on prem edge to run applications, including processing a lot of data to support different use cases. We are ecosystem neutral so we could for example take Komatsu’ s FrontRunner AHS software and run it on our platform – the same applies to electric mining equpiment management software, video analytics software or advanced comms for workers.”
Nokia networks also have cloud connectivity, so when the data has been processed it can be sent it to the cloud. Its solution is edge centric and cloud managed, so the cloud is important to keep the network running and keep the apps running perfectly, but Nokia’ s on prem edge does not rely on it to function. Everything is supported by its own data centres as well, but again, the private network is not replying on them – it can run for as long as six weeks independently.
Daeuble continued:“ So now, we start to be able to bring a lot of added value beyond just the connectivity piece. The baseline is push to talk and push to video comms- Nokia Team Comms delivers business-critical push-to-talk voice, video and data communications allowing teams to collaborate on one-to-one and group calls. But we have gone beyond that to also launch very advanced applications – the first one was MX WorkMate, which was the first solution on the market to adapt generative artificial intelligence( AI) large language model( LLM) technology to OT environments
Nokia private wireless network solutions can provide critical connectivity to power new use cases and technologies across open-pit sites
to ensure workers can communicate with all connected machines. This can be crucial for example in an emergency scenario if people are unsure what to do as it can access live data. We have done a lot of work to remove hallucination from the LLM to make it specific to the mining OT environment. It can also log all the communications for traceability of what is said in the case of an incident. Ultimately, we are looking to do more specific LLM training on site, again so the AI can become less dependent on the cloud.”
Its market reach is impressive Nokia finished 2024 with about 850 private wireless customers which includes sites of many Tier 1 miners including Codelco, Vale, Agnico-Eagle, Antamina, Rio Tinto and many others.“ One of the big differentiators for us in mining is that we have devoted a lot of time and expertise to particular segments, of which mining is one. We have mining connectivity experts in all the main regions, some of whom have a mining industry background. We do what we call segment blueprints – where we are certified and validated by major mining technology suppliers – Komatsu being a great example. Almost all Komatsu AHS deployments are using Nokia networks. In underground mining we also work closely with Sandvik on many projects. Even though every mine is different these relationships help us to validate use cases so replication becomes much easier. Also with the major equipment OEMs and autonomy, the API integration becomes much easier.”
To date, 4G has been dominant in the mining space over 5G in private network terms – why is this and is there a major difference?“ 5G as a standard is designed to be able to do things that 4G is not able to do – it delivers ultra reliable low latency, bringing it down to 1 millisecond from 15-20 milliseconds. Time sensitive networks( TSNs), for example where you have fast moving robotic arms, require 5G. The challenge we have has an industry is that we need to build the 5G routers and receivers that connect the mining trucks and other things – and those require specific chipsets, where production is dominated by Qualcomm and a few others. 5G introduced features that are critical for certain industries but not for phones, for example. The chips are also most costly and more heat generating.”
Daeuble continues:“ The reality is that the market in mining for 5G in industry using these expensive rich chipsets, especially voice-specific chipsets, is still relatively small. In addition, most private wireless networks are deployed on vertical spectrums so you
International Mining | SEPTEMBER 2025