Telecommunications equipment supplier Liquid Telecom views the Investing in African Mining Indaba, in Cape Town, as an ideal platform to highlight how fast and reliable connectivity is transforming mining operations across Africa.

The company says the event, which will be held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre from February 6 to 9, will allow it to communicate to the African mining community the benefits of networks that can support future high-bandwidth applications and allow employees to communicate, collaborate and make decisions in real-time far more easily and effectively.

With falling commodity prices expected to continue to impact profitability and sustainability in the mining industry in 2017, Liquid Telecom notes that much hope and expectation has been placed on technology and innovation to enhance the sector’s future productivity, reduce risk and unlock new efficiencies throughout mining operations.

According to management consulting company McKinsey & Company, global mining operations are 28% less productive than a decade ago, with mining companies now slim-lining expansion plans and refocusing on doing more with less. Simultaneously, many existing mines are maturing, forcing mining companies to look further afield in their pursuit of valuable minerals.

Despite the rich mining potential across sub-Saharan Africa, the forecast for the region’s mining-sector growth also remains low as companies face operational challenges and regulatory uncertainty.

As a result, in a bid to manage these challenges, the vision of a connected mine is slowly becoming a reality, says Liquid Telecom, as some of the world’s largest mining companies look towards emerging technologies such as cloud and big data to revolutionise the performance of their mining operations.

As more mining companies pursue automation across their operations, greater focus is falling on connectivity. Consequently, the company notes that mining companies across Africa are on the lookout for higher-quality network services – even for mines located in some of the remotest corners of the continent. Through the largest independent Pan-African fibre network, spanning over 40 000 km across 12 countries, Liquid Telecom provides coverage to mining areas across the continent, including the entire Copperbelt region.

Benefits of High-Quality Connectivity
In 2013, Liquid Telecom assisted midtier mining company Metorex in enhancing its connectivity and transforming its mining operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia. As a result, Metorex has a network that can support future high-bandwidth applications being developed for the mining industry.

Four years ago, Metorex completely reorganised its information and communications technology infrastructure and functions to create a central management platform for employees to work more productively. However, following the introduction of the new platform, it soon became clear that Metorex needed to review its connectivity.

“Fast and reliable links were essential between its three mines [Chibuluma, Ruashi and Kinsenda], its African headquarters in South Africa and its corporate headquarters in Hong Kong.” Following detailed research into its options and after recommendations from industry experts, Liquid Telecom explains that Metorex chose it to provide a single solution for all the company’s connectivity requirements.

Metorex and Liquid Telecom restructured the network topology and calculated the most cost-effective way of connecting each site using a multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) Ethernet private local area network solution. Liquid Telecom highlights that MPLS, a type of data-carrying technique for high-performance telecommunication networks, is of particular importance to mining companies as it provides the required flexibility for legacy systems.

New fibre was laid to the Chibuluma mine, in Zambia, from Liquid Telecom’s existing fibre network and the mine was connected to the network within just one week of the company being appointed. Four months later, the Ruashi mine, in the DRC, was connected to the network using a 5.8 GHz point-to-point wireless link to cover the 4 km from the existing Liquid Telecom point-of-presence at the Lubumbashi International Airport, which connects to Liquid Telecom’s Pan-African fibre network. Metorex’s Kinsenda mine, also in the DRC, was the next to be connected, with a 5.8 GHz link covering the 20 km from Liquid Telecom’s existing point of presence at Kasumbalesa.

The Metorex headquarters in Johannesburg were also connected by Liquid Telecom’s fibre. Meanwhile, Hong Kong was connected using the Liquid Telecom network that traverses Fujairah, in the United Arab Emirates, which, the company says, provides significantly aggressive latencies from Africa to the Far East.

Liquid Telecom was, thus, able to provide Metorex with a fully integrated network with no third-party dependencies. “All five connections receive 10 Mb/s, enabling big data transfer. “The network has almost 100% availability, so Metorex no longer needs the backup very small aperture terminal service, while a multitude of new services have been made possible, including the creation of a new virtual local area network and global video conferencing over private Internet protocol and the Internet.”

Metorex has also been able to standardise and develop its enterprise resource planning system to improve the user experience, drive costs down and introduce standard reports and financial processes. It has also achieved cost savings by centralising various tools for operations such as planning, geology, engineering, surveying and maintenance.