Wi-Fi & Communication
SINCE launching the N-Connex system late 2016, NLT has continued to roll out this new, innovative solution.
N-Connex provides underground hard rock mines with a reliable and powerful alternative to the incumbent Leaky Feeder radio system, or expensive and typically unsuitable WiFi and network solutions that are patched together from a variety of vendors.
Since installing the first system at De Bacis mine in Mexico — where they use N-Connex for all voice, data, networking and now tracking — NLT have rolled out systems in Canada, the USA and most recently, Australia.
The largest solution to date is currently being supplied and installed at MMG’s Dugald River mine in QLD.
The third system in Mexico is also now about to be deployed, based on the success achieved at De Bacis.
Leaky Feeder systems have historically had an advantage over modern, IP-based solutions: cost effective, mine-wide voice communication.
This, however, is no longer the case and thanks to NLT’s partner Icom, NLT now offers a handheld and vehicle-mounted IP radio that looks and functions similarly to traditional two-way radios.
Additionally, performance of the IP radio terminals is superior to their two-way counterparts, so the critical component of voice communications over IP networks (VoIP) is finally a reality.
NLT has supplied Wi-Fi and data systems for more than a decade, and were the first in the world to deploy intrinsically safe Wi-Fi solutions to an Australian coal mine.
But N-Connex isn’t just another typical Wi-Fi network; it’s a modular, IP67-rated system that can easily be modified and expanded to suit the changing needs of a mine, and specifically designed to simplify the installation and maintenance of a network.
The N-Connex also overcomes Leaky Feeder’s bandwidth limitations for data applications.
With a one-gigabit backbone capability, N-Connex supports the high-data demands of today’s modern mine, while providing essential needs like voice communications.
With voice communications, data, and Wi-Fi networking all supported by a single system, N-Connex eliminates the need to install a fibre system and a Leaky Feeder system in tandem.
The system’s Wi-Fi network enables two-way voice communications, video monitoring, and a platform for tracking personnel, vehicles, and assets – plus full high-speed connectivity for Wi-Fi enabled devices.
N-Connex takes the complexity out of networking, enabling a mine to expand at its own pace through the addition of true plug and play modules.
The installation at Dugald River is seeing all of these solutions being installed and commissioned.
The integration of all of these requirements into one, simple, modular system that achieves the same level of coverage (with a low-cost premium) as a Leaky Feeder system was the catalyst for NLT’s international award winning design of N-Connex.
NLT’s N-Connex is evidence that future-proofing a mine’s technology and data requirements can be affordable and achievable, making reliance on outdated, legacy technology a thing of the past.