Arctic diamond deposits provided with mobile communications

The remote mine of the Almazy Anabara company was provided with 2G and 4G mobile communications, Megafon said.

The diamond mining areas, where the mobile operator's network is now deployed, are located beyond the Arctic Circle — in the remote area of Yakutia. The new network covers four shift camps and production sites at the Mayat diamond mine. Mobile communications have become available within a radius of 160 square kilometers, and more than a thousand employees of the enterprise can quickly solve production tasks and communicate with their relatives.

"We strive to connect even the most remote corners of the country, where it is necessary to increase business efficiency and subscriber comfort," said Artem Bazyl, Director of Corporate Business Development in Siberia and the Far East.

The operator's engineers were able to establish communication in a place where fiber-optic lines do not pass and which can only be reached for a few weeks a year. Since the thickness of the ice cover did not allow heavy loads to be transported by road along the Lena River, an icebreaker was chartered to transport mobile base stations. This allowed the customer to deliver the stations to the installation site before the winter trucks were closed.

The specialists were faced with the task of not only building a network, but also ensuring that it could be moved to change the coverage area, since shift settlements and production sites can migrate as development zones shift. To start the telecom equipment in a new location, it is enough to connect it to a local power source and a satellite communication channel. Megafon's specialists can monitor the status of base stations online, monitor signal strength, and remotely carry out preventive maintenance.

"Base stations operate in extreme conditions: for example, this winter frosts reached 55 degrees and wind speeds exceeded 20 meters per second," said Alexey Okorokov, CEO of Almazy Anabara.