Russian mobile operator Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) and Swedish network vendor Ericsson are to deploy a private LTE network for Anglo-Russian mining company Polymetal. The deployment is at Polymetal’s Nezhdaninskoye gold deposit in the Republic of Sakha , in the far-east of Russia. The network will be upgradeable to 5G.
The new network will be finished by the end of 2020, said Ericsson and MTS; it will provide a “critical communications infrastructure” for industrial IoT, they said. It will be used for remote monitoring and for managing “critical processes in difficult geographic and weather conditions”.
MTS said it has implemented a number of private LTE pilot projects with Russian enterprises for “various industrial needs”, but claimed the Polymetal installation was the first commercial private LTE deployment in Russia. Polymetal is a major producer of gold and silver
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Ericsson said in a statement: “MTS and Polymetal will be enabled to use all the carrier grade packet network functions for own mission-critical applications. The solution supports 4G and 5G non-standalone simultaneously and allows dual-mode core capability to support standalone 5G New Radio.
It added: “The deployment of the private LTE network as a single high-speed platform for various technological needs will enable MTS to significantly increase the speed of transferring large amounts of information, the fault tolerance of the private network and also reduce its maintenance cost. This will be of particular benefit when dealing with the harsh climatic conditions and constantly changing mountainous terrain.”