One Rail Australia Testing Star Link
What do you do when you are in the middle of nowhere, literally, a placed called Wirrida, 82.8 km east of Coober Pedi South Australia ( -2948603,13455515) and you need internet and communications?
At One Rail Australia we are investigating the installation of new weighing equipment to assist the business, ensure wagons are loading appropriately to prevent damage to the track on route. Over loading or unbalanced loads can cause damage to the track and infrastructure. Rectifying loading at the source will prevent Locomotives being turned back once monitored by the regulator. The cost of sending back a locomotive to the loading area after having travelled 130km becomes expensive and time consuming.
Essential to the success of operation and control of loading at the site, how to get data transmitted back to the control office at Adelaide. Wirrida has no mobile communications let alone any power.
This week we conducted tests on site at Wirrida with our newly found Star Link device that we acquired a week before. Did some testing at home a few days before the trip to familiarise ourselves with the technology. Any product with 3 simple instructions has to be easy and it was. We plugged in the modem into the back of a Toyota Prado 240 v outlet 100watt 2.5Amp and the disk did its thing, did the initial setup pointing my mobile at the sky and a few minutes later the dish re-adjusted and the modem was online.
Now to see how fast it will operate remembering we are not in a traditional commercial location, did a number of speed tests not just on the Star Link App but on Telstra and Optus speed test to get an un-bias conclusion. The results were phenomenal speed test on all three apps produced speeds of over 120Mbps and even the latency was negligible at round 66ms. Then performed a few tests, Teams meet, Telephone call, SMS messaging, Emails, One Drive and a number of other non business related applications. The trial was a success far better than we anticipated. We can now comfortably proceed with the weighing equipment installation and confidence that data Transmitting is achievable even from such a remote location. We can also provide effective comms to our Drivers who frequent these locations to perform maintenance.
I got better internet connection from Star Link in the middle of nowhere that I get at home from NBN Fibre to the home:)
Director at DSM RailCon Pty Ltd
2 年I have Star Link at home, as we do not have NBN and 4G wireless was rubbish! Utilising these kind of resources in remote locations can only be a benefit.
Customer Success Manager
2 年That’s awesome! Would love to hear your feedback and understand how it works more
Signalling Commissioning Manager / Director at Green Aspect Consulting
2 年How are you overcoming the lack of addressable fixed IP4 & IP6?
This is great technology and something we're investigating for Inland Rail to see who it might be able to be implemented in equally remote locations.
#Transport Manager #Operations Manager #General Manager #Logistics
2 年Great work Jorg, yet another initiative that will allow us to continue to provide effective and efficient services over the network, as well as keeping our crews safe by not placing additional stresses on the rail and rolling stock.