Redline Communications, a provider of specialized broadband wireless solutions, today announced they have received and shipped a $2 million order for their rugged industrial wireless system to a major oil and gas company. The system is being deployed in the U.S. and will provide high capacity, high availability communications between drilling rigs and the centralized control offices of one of the world’s largest and most successful oil extraction companies.
Redline’s RDL-3000 family of rugged industrial wireless products was selected by this new customer to deliver a secure, high speed wireless backbone, providing seamless connectivity for the drilling rigs in two oil fields, one in South Texas and another in North Dakota. Wireless Redline devices mounted on towers and rigs deliver connectivity across hundreds of miles of terrain and Redline’s patent-pending Rapid Auto Steering (RAS) technology allows wireless coverage to operate uninterrupted even as drilling rigs move from location to location.
“We know how challenging it is to operate networks in oil fields and our products have been designed with the ruggedness, reliability and resilience that the energy sector demands,”said Eric Melka, Redline CEO. “We’re pleased to see how well our products are being accepted in this new and exciting machine-to-machine space.”
“This contract is another indicator of our strengthening position within the oil and gas sector, the fastest growing part of our business,” added Melka. “This new large order has contributed to a strong overall second quarter, for which we now expect Bookings to at least match our record Q1 Bookings.”
Instant and real-time communication in an oil field is critical to both safety and efficiency. With the Redline Virtual Fiber™ network, live video feeds are delivered wirelessly from drilling rigs to head office, enhancing team collaboration and enabling faster decisions. Extending voice communications with VoIP and providing access to corporate information systems out into the field helps increase productivity, and a video surveillance system will monitor operations, ensuring the safety of personnel and equipment. Because Redline’s network is also transparent and open, all of the standard IT assets (routers, switching equipment, cameras and phones) used in the wired offices can now be used anywhere in the operation. This ability to extend existing networks to the wireless oil field means a more cost effective and easily managed IT operation.
Key to the success of this most recent project is Redline’s RDL-3000 product family that, in addition to being rugged and incredibly reliable, has the flexibility to deliver high-speed bandwidth on demand in both uplink and downlink directions. This becomes important when many types of applications are run over a single wireless network as some applications like video conferencing need an enormous amount of uplink capacity, a performance attribute that is not possible with other wireless delivery systems such as satellite or cellular. When coupled with VOIP, WI-FI, and machine-to-machine traffic, each with their own unique transmission needs, the ability of a system to deliver a range of QoS options is also critical, and Redline’s system delivers this and more.
