Latest / The 5G Podcast with Fexingo: Wireless Networks, Carriers, and Mobile Infrastructure / How 5G Is Quietly Transforming the Mining Industry
Transcript
- Lucas: So we get a lot of emails asking, 'Okay, 5G in factories — we get that. But where else is it actually delivering real, measurable ROI today?' And one answer that keeps coming up — and it surprised me at first — is mining. Luna: Mining as in, like, big holes in the ground, dynamite, dump trucks? Lucas: Exactly that. But the dump trucks are now driverless, and the dynamite is triggered by a tablet from two kilometres away. I want to focus on one specific operation: an iron ore mine in Western Australia run by a company called Fortescue Metals Group. Luna: Fortescue — they've been aggressive on green hydrogen too, right? But let's stay on the 5G piece. Lucas: Right. So back in 2024, Fortescue started deploying a private 5G network across their Solomon mine. The goal was to run their fleet of autonomous haulage trucks — these are Caterpillar 793s, each loaded to about 240 tons — completely over 5G instead of the Wi-Fi and 4G they had been using. Luna: What was wrong with Wi-Fi and 4G? Lucas: Latency and reliability. The trucks operate in a 1.5-kilometre-deep pit, and the network has to handle real-time telemetry, video feeds from six cameras per truck, and collision-avoidance commands. Wi-Fi doesn't cover that range reliably. 4G LTE can, but the latency jitter was too high — occasionally 50 or 60 milliseconds. For a 240-ton truck moving at 15 kilometres an hour, that's enough to miss a braking command by half a metre. Luna: Right, and half a metre against a rock wall or another truck is a bad day. Lucas: Exactly. So they worked with Nokia to deploy a dedicated 5G standalone network using the 3.5 gigahertz band. They deployed about 20 small cells around the pit, connected to an on-site edge server. The result: round-trip latency dropped to under 10 milliseconds, consistently. And they saw a 15 percent reduction in operating costs per ton moved. Luna: Fifteen percent — that's huge in a commodity business where margins are thin. Where does that saving come from? Lucas: Two main sources. First, the trucks can run closer together because the control system trusts the latency. They reduced the following distance from 40 metres to 20 metres, which means more trucks on the same road, more tonnes per hour. Second, predictive maintenance — the vibration and temperature sensors stream continuously now, so the maintenance team catches bearing failures before they cause a breakdown. Luna: So it's not just the autonomous driving, it's the data plumbing underneath. Lucas: Exactly. And that data plumbing is where 5G really shines compared to 4G. The upload speeds are five to ten times higher, so they can send the full video stream from every truck to the remote operations centre in Perth, 800 kilometres away. Luna: Wait — the trucks are controlled from Perth? I thought it was on-site. Lucas: The collision-avoidance and basic navigation is handled by the on-site edge server. But for exception handling — if a truck encounters something unusual on the road, a rockfall or a stalled vehicle — a human operator in Perth takes over via the video feed. That's where the low latency matters across that long distance. Luna: That's a pretty demanding use case for a wide-area network. What carrier are they using for the backhaul? Lucas: They have a dedicated fibre link from the mine to Perth — part of the Australian government's regional connectivity program. Without that fibre, the private 5G network wouldn't be able to hand off to the remote ops centre. So it's an end to end infrastructure play. Luna: Let's talk about safety. One of the big promises of autonomous mining is removing people from hazardous zones. How does 5G specifically enable that beyond what 4G could do? Lucas: Great question. At the Solomon mine, they also deployed 5G-connected wearable sensors for the few remaining workers who do maintenance in the pit. These wearables detect proximity to autonomous vehicles, and if a worker gets within a certain radius, the truck's control system gets a signal to stop or reroute. Luna: Is that a 5G-specific capability, or could you do that with 4G? Lucas: You could, but 5G's network slicing makes it more reliable. The mine carves out a dedicated slice for safety-critical communications — so even if the video feeds from the trucks consume a lot of bandwidth, the safety messages have guaranteed priority and ultra-low latency. That's hard to guarantee on a shared 4G network without dedicated hardware. Luna: So slicing moves from a theoretical 5G feature to a real operational tool in a place like this. Lucas: Exactly. And the mining industry is actually ahead of most others on this. According to a report from the World Economic Forum, mining operations accounted for about 12 percent of all private 5G deployments globally as of early 2026. That's disproportionate for an industry that represents less than two percent of global GDP. Luna: Why do you think mining is adopting faster than, say, manufacturing or logistics? Lucas: I think it's because the ROI case is clearer. A mine is a contained environment — you control access, you have a clear operational boundary, and the cost of downtime is enormous. A single haul truck costing three million dollars sitting idle because of a network glitch is a very visible loss. In manufacturing, you often have legacy equipment that's hard to retrofit. In mining, the newer equipment — like those Caterpillar 793 trucks — already has the sensors and controllers built in. You just need the network. Luna: And the scale helps too. Fortescue has over 200 autonomous trucks across their operations. If you can prove the model at one mine, you roll it out to all of them. Lucas: Right. And that's what they're doing. By the end of 2025, they had deployed private 5G at three more mines. The next frontier is underground mining, which is much harder because you need leaky feeder cables or distributed antennas. But several companies in Canada and South Africa are piloting that now. Luna: Speaking of pilots — are there any smaller mining companies adopting this, or is it just the giants like Fortescue, BHP, Rio Tinto? Lucas: Mostly the giants so far, because the upfront cost is significant. Nokia and Ericsson don't sell a private 5G network for under a few hundred thousand dollars. But there are new entrants offering '5G as a service' — companies like Celona and Druid Software that package the small cells, the core network, and the edge server into a monthly subscription. That could unlock the mid-tier miners. Luna: Have you seen any subscription deals actually signed? Lucas: Yes — in early 2026, a copper mine in Zambia signed a five-year contract with a neutral-host provider for a private 5G network covering an open pit and a processing plant. The monthly fee is reportedly around 40,000 dollars, which includes all hardware, software, and support. That's about the same as what they were paying for satellite and Wi-Fi, but with much better performance. Luna: So the business case works even for a mid-tier operation. That's promising. Lucas: It is. And it suggests that the mining industry's 5G adoption could follow a similar curve to solar in the 2010s — starts with large, well-capitalised players, then the cost comes down as the technology matures, and eventually it becomes standard. Luna: Let's take a quick step back — before we go further, I wanted to mention something. A lot of you have written in saying you appreciate that this podcast stays ad-free and focused on real use cases, not vendor hype. It's something Lucas and I care about a lot, and honestly, it's only possible because of listener support. Lucas: Yeah, it's true. We don't run ads, we don't take sponsorship from the companies we cover, and that means the production costs come out of pocket. A couple of dollars a month from listeners who find value in these episodes genuinely makes a difference — it covers the hosting, the research tools, the editing time. If you've gotten something out of the show, you can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: And honestly, it keeps us free to cover angles like this mining story without worrying about pleasing a sponsor. So thank you to everyone who's contributed already. Lucas: Absolutely. Now, back to the pit. I want to talk about one more thing — network slicing's role beyond safety. At the Fortescue mine, they also use slicing to separate operational traffic from employee Wi-Fi and IoT sensors monitoring environmental conditions like dust and gas levels. That separation means the mine's network manager can guarantee bandwidth for the haul trucks even when a crew of 200 people is streaming video in their break room. Luna: That's the kind of practical detail that makes 5G more than just 'faster 4G.' It's about predictable performance. Lucas: Exactly. And that predictability is why I think mining might be the canary in the coal mine — pun intended — for industrial 5G more broadly. If the technology can prove itself in the harshest environment on earth — extreme heat, dust, vibration, deep pits — then it can work anywhere. Luna: What's the one thing you'd want a listener to remember from this episode? Lucas: That 5G in mining isn't about downloading movies faster. It's about a 15 percent cost reduction in a commodity business, enabled by 10-millisecond latency and network slicing. And that's happening today, not in some future pilot. Luna: And that the same network that runs the autonomous trucks also keeps the human workers safe. That's a powerful combination. Lucas: It is. Next time, we'll look at another unexpected industry where 5G is making a quiet but measurable impact. Until then.