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STRIX SYSTEMS’ ACCESS/ONE WIRELESS MESH NETWORK COVERS 25-SQUARE MILE MOBILE COAL MINING OPERATIONS
Falkirk Mining Gains Throughput, Reliability, Ease of implementation and Administration with Strix Solution
CALABASAS, California, August 7, 2007
CORE NEWS FACTS
Strix Systems, the leader in high-performance wireless mesh networking, today announced that The Falkirk Mining Company, a subsidiary of The North American Coal Corp. the nation’s largest lignite coal producer, has deployed Strix’s Access/One® Network Outdoor Wireless Systems (OWS) and Access/One® Network Edge Wireless System 150 (EWS 150) at its Falkirk surface coal mine in North Dakota. Falkirk Mining’s wireless mesh network, which currently covers over 25 square miles and continues to grow, is used for critical logistics data communications to constantly moving coal trucks and bulldozing equipment. Multiple simultaneously active mobile network hotzones roam across the mine at any one time.
Falkirk mines approximately eight million tons of lignite coal annually, using large earthmoving equipment. Giant mobile dragline cranes expose the coal which is then loaded into oversized 200-ton haul trucks that dump the coal into Falkirk’s crushing facility. Dozers then re-grade the land for eventual return to area landowners, farmers, and ranchers. The company has installed a wireless network system into nearly every type of equipment used throughout the mining process—including survey trucks, scrapers, bulldozers, blades, coal trucks, excavators, shovels, pickup laptops, and large draglines—to help ensure it meets the precise performance in reclamation and high safety standards that make the company a prime example of the modern coal industry.
“We are always moving mining operations to different geographic areas, while continuing to grow our operations,” said Darin Jacobson, information systems technician at Falkirk Mining Company. “We are implementing the Strix solution because we needed a wireless mesh network that offered resilient and reliable mobility and high speed, enterprise-class security in an easily-deployed product. Strix’s modular design and its advanced, innovative architecture made it the right choice for Falkirk, especially since Strix can cover large areas with only a few nodes.”
Falkirk Mining is now deploying the EWS 150 into its ground equipment and phasing out its existing equipment. The EWS 150s have a high-performance Wi-Fi connection to Strix’s Access/One OWS devices, which are deployed throughout the area the mine covers, thus enabling an end-to-end wireless experience and seamless and resilient roaming. The Strix OWS network in turn has a backhauled connection to Falkirk Mining’s enterprise LAN.
At the Falkirk mine, the network enables data transmissions to and from the mining equipment. Coal trucks are linked to an innovative GPS system which uses 802.11 to relay logistics information to the central office network, which tracks vehicle locations, active and planned mining areas, and time sensitive operations data. Draglines, for example, constantly report productivity information back to servers, while remote pump locations relay their electronic status to the central monitoring and control program. The Strix OWS/EWS solution gives the IT department the throughput, reliability, ease of implementation and administration it needs to meet their internal network requirements and provide optimal access to new and innovative resources.
“Just as the Strix EWS and OWS provides timely and critical data in public safety networks, these solutions can always prove to be critical in enterprise applications as well,” said Tom Mooreland, Strix Systems. “In situations where a delay of seconds can cause a monetary loss, drop in productivity, or even injury, Strix’s low latency, high-performance solution provides the market’s strongest wireless mesh network option.”
*Strix Access/One Network Outdoor Wireless System (OWS)
*Strix Access/One Network Edge Wireless System (EWS)
*Strix Wireless Mesh Network Solutions
*Falkirk Mining Company
*North American Coal Corporation
About Strix OWS
Strix's Access/One OWS modular mesh products deliver the largest capacity (up to six radios and 768 users per node, three to six times the norm), highest throughput (five times the norm at 35 Mbps), and best scalability (users can add more radio boards, 4.9GHz, WiMAX modules, or new technologies). An independent wireless mesh test sponsored by Light Reading and completed in June 2006 found Strix’s OWS 2400-30 delivers the best throughput and capacity, the greatest scalability for voice applications, and the best mobility/roaming. Strix networks scale to 10 or more wireless hops with near-zero throughput loss and latency. Customers can deliver real-time applications with a minimum of wired connections for a given area, which reduces CapEx and OpEx.
About Strix Systems
Strix Systems is the proven worldwide leader in wireless mesh networking. Strix’s Access/One products are the industry’s only modular (chassis-based) mesh systems, delivering the highest throughput, lowest latency, greatest capacity and unparalleled scalability. This new generation of products provides the broadband mobility and reach to support voice, video, and data applications. Sold globally by a network of first-class distributors and integrators, Access/One solutions have been deployed in hundreds of networks worldwide, outdoor and indoor, for the service providers, metro, public safety, government, energy, transportation, hospitality, education, enterprise, and residential markets. For more information about Strix Systems, please visit www.strixsystems.com |
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