Many of the world’s major ports have been in operati on for decades and are now faced with the challenge of aging, mobile-limited network infrastructure in an environment more dynamic than ever before. Data volume demands for SCADA, RFID, CCTV, and related applicati ons have increased and the need for mobile communicati ons has become essenti al. The explosion of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices, autonomous equipment, and roboti cs platf orms off er further opportuniti es for port terminals to achieve transformati ve producti vity and efficiency gains, but to take advantage of such applicati ons they must rapidly modernize their largely wired networks.
Today, ubiquitous mobile coverage is vital to keep up the constant flow of goods in and out of a port and to the proper functi oning of semi- and fully autonomous equipment. By adding wireless technology, whether cellular LTE, point-to-point (PTP), or point-to-multi point (PtMP) solutions, port operators are realizing incremental mobility gains, but the capabiliti es of such wireless soluti ons sti ll fall short when trying to bring reliable, rapidly scalable mobile connecti vity to every corner of the port terminal.
Traditional wireless networks were simply not designed to provide reliable connecti vity over widespread areas such as port environments, especially when the assets within…
