Remote Broadband Connectivity for Remote Worksites

Background

When supporting a temporary office location with the same broadband connectivity needs as a regular office, a scalable and secure connection is a must have. Zero-touch provisioning makes setup simple, needing just a basic power supply and network connectivity, and gives your remote workers smooth, secure access back into the corporate environment.

System Requirements

Our customer needed a highly mobile, rugged and secure network connectivity solution with ease of deployment at remote sites. Only 4G LTE radios could provide such cost-effective connectivity at the time. The communications link back to the corporate network needed to be secure and able to scale depending on the number of users at the remote location.

System Description

The solution involved using Advantech’s industrial cellular router, the ICR-1601, together with a third-party load balancer. This setup provided a wireless broadband connection to corporate headquarters, no matter where the temporary construction site was located. Connectivity and performance were monitored using the R-SeeNET application.

To get this up and running, we put several things in place:

- Zero touch deployment not requiring any technical knowhow, just add power.

- Dependable network coverage over a geographically diverse mix of remote construction locations.

- Secure and encrypted connectivity to the corporate head office extending the network.

- Monitoring of network performance, data usage analysis to prevent exceeding usage fees.

Project Implementation

For this project, we put together a mix of hardware, software, and connectivity solutions to make sure everything ran smoothly, stayed secure, and could be managed easily on site.

- ICR-1601 Industrial Cellular Router for low-cost remote connectivity.

- R-SeeNET application providing network performance monitoring.

- Integration with 3rd party network load balancer to scale the network bandwidth as required.

System Diagram

Conclusion

Advantech’s Industrialised Cellular Router was selected by the customer because of the following.

- A future proof wireless communications architecture.

- Reliable communications with automated cellular radio connectivity and fail over between 4G LTE, 3G UMTS and 2G GSM. Dual SIM cards providing for multi network operator coverage.

- Centralised device management and provisioning using WebAccess DMP application in the control room.

- Sailable broadband connectivity opening the doors for future services.