Is it time to subscribe to a printer service from HP?

Ever since my dad brought home an...

What’s the best way of buying a phone today?

How did you buy your latest phone?...

MWC: What device highlights did you miss?

So, early last week I predicted that...

Want reliability? Get your own mobile network!

I got this news in from Lesley over at Teleware. If you recall, Teleware are the company who’ve loaned me one of their Private Mobile Network boxes. Plug it in and woosh, you’ve got your own ready-made mobile network.

Well, UK water company, Kemira Water, was hunting for a reliable method of notifying onsite staff as to the status of their equipment. You want to know if something’s bubbling over or getting too full, don’t you? And you don’t want your text message waiting for minutes whilst the mobile network shifts a hundred thousand goal alerts. No. You need the update now, and you need it wherever you are on-site.

Bingo. You want a Private Mobile Network. That’s what Kemira implemented. I’ve appended part of the release below for those interested.

Since the private network does not carry public traffic, messages are delivered virtually instantaneously. Furthermore, there are no charges, either for text messages or for internal phone calls between staff using standard mobile phones. Dave Goult, Operations Manager commented, “PMN came and gave us an impressive demonstration of their capabilities onsite. Although we had some initial teething problems, these were ironed out. The solution has delivered on its promise and allowed us to achieve our goal.”

Kemira Water operates four production lines at its Bradford facility, manufacturing polymers used in municipal and industrial water treatment processes. The production lines are, essentially, fully automated and run by a SCADA (Supervisory Control & Data Acquisition) industrial control system. The system raises various alarm states should operator intervention be required. In the event of a serious issue occurring, the control system is quite capable of shutting down a production line automatically.

As the production lines look after themselves most of the time, the company sought a more flexible approach to deploying the staff responsible for responding to any alarm states, freeing them from the confines of the control room to carry out other duties on-site. Naturally, health and safety issues are paramount and any solution had to conform to stringent requirements.

Kemira Bradford’s Operations Manager, Dave Goult, had previously investigated using their existing mobile network operator to carry the text messages. However, this proved expensive, at up to £800 per month, and the sometimes long delay between an alarm being raised by the control system and being received by personnel on the mobile meant the solution was initially deemed unacceptable.

A private mobile network was installed with sufficient BTS (base transceiver station) units to provide full coverage of the site. The PMN solution integrates with the SCADA control system to receive and transmit text messages via SMS and with the company’s normal telephone system, enabling external calls to be made from a mobile phone at the company’s landline tariff when on site. Staff are required to reply to alarm messages within a defined time period, otherwise the alarm notification is cascaded down a predefined list of staff until a response is received.

3 COMMENTS

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Recently Published

Is it time to subscribe to a printer service from HP?

Ever since my dad brought home an HP LaserJet printer (version 3, if memory serves), I have been printing with an HP. Over the...

What’s the best way of buying a phone today?

How did you buy your latest phone? I'm asking because I'm thinking about what I should be doing. When I was living in Oman, I...

MWC: What device highlights did you miss?

So, early last week I predicted that next to nothing from Mobile World Congress would break through into the mainstream media. I was right,...

How Wireless Will Pave the Path to Neobank Profitability

I'm delighted to bring you an opinion piece from Rafa Plantier at Gigs.com. I think it's particularly relevant given the recent eSIM news from...

An end of an era: Vodafone UK turns off 3G services

I thought it was worthwhile highlighting this one from the Vodafone UK team. For so long - for what feels like years, seeing the...

Mobile World Congress: Did the mainstream media notice?

I resolved this year to make sure I wrote something - anything - about Mobile World Congress, the huge mobile industry trade show taking...