When Minjar Gold was looking for a way to improve network coverage and connectivity speeds across its remotely located Southern Cross operation in Western Australia, the company exhausted almost every option before finding the Vocus solution.

The Minjar operation is centred around Marvel Loch, approximately 400km east of Perth and nearly 40km away from the Southern Cross, the closest township.

This meant the site had no access to the National Broadband Network (nbn) and relied on a limited-speed telecommunication network through the legacy service provider.

“We wanted to ensure that our employees had consistent and reliable internet access to be able to remain connected with their loved ones while working on the site, as well as to provide them with better entertainment options, such as on-demand video streaming,” says Sean Kocis, Minjar Gold’s senior network and systems engineer.

The remoteness of the mine, however, made connectivity at the level that Minjar expected to achieve highly challenging, as the team found out in its research.

“We went through every possible connectivity solution, from microwave technology to fibre connectivity, satellite internet access, 3G, and 4G network. Each of these either had certain limitations for our project or was too costly,” Kocis says.

Eventually, a service integrator experienced in working with Vocus on resource projects recommended Vocus to Kocis as the right provider for Minjar’s requirements.