Redline Communications Group Inc. announced in a press release that a supermajor oil and gas company has selected its portfolio of Virtual Fiber rugged wireless broadband network systems for its oilfield area networks.

The oil and gas industry has some unique challenges that add complexities to building high-speed networks. These challenges include the terrain, topography, and environment of oil fields, which can be found in hot arid deserts, subzero arctic mountains, humid rainforests, and offshore in deep water. Within these fields, equipment must withstand anything nature can throw at it, continuing to operate reliably in sandstorms, hurricanes, and blizzards. Redline equipment is purpose-built for these conditions, thriving in temperatures ranging from -40° C to +75° C (-40° F to +167° F), with the lowest failure rate in the industry, the company said.

Because this supermajor oil and gas producer operates internationally, it also must deal with an array of regulations governing the use of both the licensed and unlicensed spectrums, which can vary from country to country. With Redline equipment built on its Universal Wireless Transport platform, the same network equipment can be deployed anywhere in the world, operating on an optimal frequency to meet both networking requirements and local government restrictions, Redline said.

Redline network equipment, particularly on nomadic assets such as oil rigs that are frequently moving from place to place, is engineered to be easy to set up and operated by oilfield employees and contractors. Redline’s Rapid Alignment System nomadic wireless broadband platform operates with zero-touch configuration, automatically connecting these moveable network endpoints to the wide area network, according to the release.

Redline network systems can give oil and gas customers the longest range, fastest speeds, and lowest latency of any other wireless system available. The systems can operate more like fiber-optic networks, which can be too costly and impractical for most oil and gas applications, Redline said. These network attributes mean Redline equipment can be used for a wide range of applications in the oil field, including the expanding use of machine-to-machine communications in enhanced oil recovery operations, SCADA networks, real-time video surveillance, and video collaboration, as well as traditional data and voice communications.