Operator Ooredoo Qatar and Nokia are claiming a significant milestone with the establishment of the Middle East and Africa’s first private wireless network in the region for the energy sector.
The deployed solution covers an initial capacity of 20,000 subscribers for the offshore grid, providing dedicated voice and customer data services in the most remote and challenging locations.
The network aims to connect offshore and onshore facilities, ensuring seamless voice and data services. By offering dedicated connectivity, this network will empower customers to digitalise and automate operations, marking a significant step towards enhanced efficiency and productivity.
Nokia says it will supply cutting-edge products tailored to deliver resilient mission-critical connectivity, along with deployment and care services, with its resident engineers providing expert support to ensure the network operates at optimal level.
The solution offers a native offshore system designed to deliver services, seamlessly integrating with the existing commercial core, enabling customers to improve operational efficiency and reduce interruptions from onshore connectivity.
The integration equally enables the efficient handling of interoperability and interservice handovers, making communication between offshore and onshore locations smoother and more reliable than ever before, while managing latency issues through localised data services to improve process efficiency. It will also improve customer experience by replacing older Wi-Fi and WiMAX technologies.
So is this a landmark project that, as Günther Ottendorfer, CTIO at Ooredoo Qatar, puts it, “paves the way for the oil and gas sector and others to replicate such solutions, marking a new era in connectivity for the industry”?
It will be interesting to see whether offshore-focused businesses in particular feel the undoubted advantage in efficiency and competitive edge justifies what promises to be a major investment.
