World's first WiMAX oil rig deployment

AlanDick, the communications infrastructure specialist, landed the contract for the world’s first deployment of a WiMAX multipoint network at sea, on board a cluster of 11 off-shore oil rig platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

As well as being the world’s first WiMAX network deployment to an oil rig cluster, the installation will be Mexico’s – and quite probably South America’s – first major WiMAX network.

The 11 oil production platforms from Pemex – one of Mexico’s major companies - are located offshore from Ciudad del Carmen, Campeche. The 3.4 GHz WiMAX transmissions use double redundancy components and systems at all points in the network - spanning an average of 10km between the platforms. The most remote platform is 16 km away from the rest of the group, whilst the shortest WiMAX hop is 4km.

The decision to go with WiMAX was taken after the technology’s advantages were realised by the client. WiMAX has quickly established itself as the wideband wireless network of choice for land-based networks, but the system really comes into its own over water, as any attenuation issues are minimised thanks to its frequency hopping spread spectrum network topology.

WIMAX is a globally ratified standard that can support both voice and data, yet is still flexible enough to support several different data modulation schemes. This makes it ideal for an off-shore oil rig deployment, where the distances and variable, often hostile, weather conditions involved will push any wireless technology to its limit.

Key to the project's success was planning for a worst case weather scenario - wireless network deployments over water can encounter problems such as torrential downpours of rain, triggered by the high humidity levels seen at sea - all contriving to severely attenuate the radio signal.

WiMAX’s inherent flexibility, coupled with the high performance of the Redline RedMAX kit used in the project, allowed Pemex to make the right choice in terms of technology, hardware and system integrator.

AlanDick's solution delivers critical real-time voice, video and data communications for improvement of operational efficiency.