In September of 2009, Allied Gold appointed Pactel International to design a solution that could provide high speed data services between their Brisbane data centers and their remote Simberi mine in Papua New Guinea. The new platform had to replace an existing, lower bandwidth communication system and had to be cost-effective, while being robust enough to withstand the extreme weather conditions and harsh environment of New Guinea.
A major service requirement of the new platform was for the Gold Ridge mine to be remotely monitored and managed by Allied Gold’s IT staff in Brisbane, Australia. The platform also needed to facilitate effective low latency and high availability connectivity for critical applications such as email, file sharing, document management, as well as Citrix access to the ERP system hosted in Brisbane. In addition, one year later, as the company’s operations expanded, a completely new link was required into Allied Gold’s Gold Ridge Mine in the Solomon Islands, which also needed to provide high quality voice services to the corporate office in Brisbane.
Solid Solution
Pactel International delivered a complete turnkey solution to Allied Gold, based on its C-band VSAT network by providing a direct link from PNG back to Brisbane.
The company’s new C-band VSAT platform offers the following benefits:
– 24x7 online support system + network management
– Automatic bandwidth shaping, delivering bandwidth-efficient applications
– Increased reliability and throughput
– Ruggedized design to suit the extreme weather conditions and harsh environment of PNG
– Total flexibility of system layout, with the options of placing more terminals and sharing or increasing bandwidth in the future
Pactel’s VSAT C-band platform represents a Layer 2, end-to-end, SCPC WAN solution, providing unprecedented performance and low latency. It is based on cutting edge technology, using the latest modulation techniques to ensure efficiency, reliability, availability and throughput.
Challenges Faced
The design and testing of this service proceeded according to the schedule. However, a number of challenges presented themselves, including:
– Environmental: the initial installation had to be performed in a harsh working environment with heavy rainfall during the installation process.
– Design: the equipment had to be designed simple enough to be installed and operated by the non-technical staff, thus reducing the installation and operation costs.
– Physical: The new technology had to cope with extreme weather conditions, such as high temperatures, high humidity and heavy rains.
In spite of the challenges faced, Pactel International successfully implemented a new C-band VSAT system that was able to deliver high quality voice and data services to the remote regions of PNG. The simple and centralized administration allows for effective network monitoring of the VSAT terminals via Pactel’s Network Operations Centre. It now allows for Allied Gold to remotely access critical information and monitor their sites on a continuous basis. Relevant personnel now have the ability to remotely login to check details such as throughput, uptime and latency.
Pactel’s expertise assisted in producing a system which is designed to survive in remote locations under harsh weather conditions. It’s new technology delivers reliable, weather proof, cost and bandwidth efficient communications, empowering any client to deliver their services at the highest quality.
Allied Gold’s staff now have access to a reliable communication system, which provides voice and data services, enabling the company to seamlessly run industry-specific applications such as:
– High speed, bandwidth-efficient Intranet access
– Direct Layer 2 connectivity to domestic private IP networks
– Telephony and Fax over IP
– Real-time data exchange
– Remote Terminal Server access
Expansion Of Services
As Allied Gold expanded its exploration and development activities into the Solomon Islands in 2010, Pactel International was able to respond rapidly by creating another symmetrical link into this remote region. The new link was designed to provide similar communication services as for the Simberi Gold mine in PNG and was increased in size six months later.
Steffen Holzt, Executive Director of Pactel International, said, “Customers like Allied Gold are our prime focus in the resource market and we acknowledge the importance of satellite links like these into the remote regions. We appreciate the trust companies like Allied Gold have in our abilities to deliver vital communications, which whole industries can depend on.”
About Pactel International
Pactel International delivers high quality, fully customised, VSAT, ToIP (Telephony over IP) and GSM solutions to the Asia-Pacific region. Our solutions are implemented to match your specific telecommunications requirements, from point to point links through to fully managed network connection.