Murray Irrigation upgrades with Simoco

Murray Irrigation’s need for a communications solution that can deliver resilient, IP-based voice and data communications has been fulfilled thanks to the Simoco Xfin’s IP-based distributed architecture.

Murray Irrigation is the largest private irrigation company in Australia, delivering high-quality irrigation water to over 2300 landholdings, incorporating 748,000 ha, in southern NSW. It also supplies water to four towns - Berrigan, Finley, Wakool and Bunnaloo - through 2939 km of energy-efficient, gravity-fed, earthen channels. Regional drainage services are also provided to approximately one-third of this area, with 1425 km of stormwater escape channels.

Network communication forms a key part of Murray Irrigation’s ongoing plans to improve its water irrigation services. The company wanted to enhance radio services yet retain ownership of its communications, therefore maintaining full network control. Central to its investment in service enhancement is the additional outlay in supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) and telemetry to provide the hardware essential for shifting from a manually controlled system to remote control and selected automation.

In 2008, Murray Irrigation rolled out a comprehensive SCADA IP network to support its future development plans and site automation. On the back of the network, the company required a communications solution that would be IP based and deliver full site communication coverage for employees that work along the 7480 km² of supply channels for water distribution and maintenance.

The existing series of independent radio systems were deemed old and unreliable, with numerous black spots that forced the fleet of over 85 field staff to use their mobile phones. However, they too were unpredictable because GSM coverage was poor in many areas. This created significant workplace health and safety risks - especially as there are often lone workers on site. Murray Irrigation needed to install a system that met the agriculture industry’s strict duty of care obligations and proved to be reliable, consistent and easy to use.

Maintenance of the existing radio systems cost thousands of dollars per month, and the staff’s use of mobile phones created more unnecessary costs. Furthermore, the legacy radio system was not interconnected, so sites operated as silos as opposed to one large-scale network, posing significant operational restrictions. To address the limitations of the existing communications network, Murray Irrigation began to evaluate solutions for an IP-based, interconnected radio network which would offer flexibility.

Simoco Channel Partner Tekace Communications, which delivers telecommunications services to businesses across the region, partnered with Simoco to develop an interconnected radio solution for Murray Irrigation. The consortium gradually upgraded the company to a full-interlinked network, with staged migration where sites operated in basic conventional modes before being upgraded to full trunking systems as the migration neared completion. 

Tekace implemented Simoco’s Xfin multisite technology, which complemented Murray Irrigation’s SCADA network investment. With its IP multisite connectivity, the Xfin trunked solution allows site-wide communications between four sites - Wakool, Tantonan, Sandridge and Ryans Hill. Three base stations operate at each of the sites and over 100 SRM9000 mobile radios with SRM9022 control heads are active daily on the network.

It was these specific requirements to deliver an integrated communications system that led Murray Irrigation to deploy Xfin technology. The company found that Simoco’s IP-based solution could simply embed itself into the existing SCADA IP network. Furthermore, it proved to be the most cost-effective solution to improve site operations and increase safety levels on sites as well as deliver impressive coverage for such a wide-area deployment.

Finally, Tekace installed a simple telephone interconnection and POTS (plain old telephone service), which is likely to develop into a more elaborate system in the future as Murray Irrigation’s needs develop. This allows radio users to make and receive telephone calls through a landline, avoiding costly mobile phone calls and GSM service black spots.

Now fully operational, the Xfin trunked network offers users considerable performance improvements, including full-site radio coverage; greater overall system resilience; and telephone interconnection, drawing from its IP-based architecture and innovative design. The technology is used for day-to-day operations for both group and individual calls and telephone, enabling users to report maintenance issues, check in daily and coordinate channel repair work. Staff are given seamless radio coverage over the sites they work on and their radios instantly connect to the nearest site - an important factor for Murray Irrigation as staff often travel between sites. Furthermore, the system gives each user the simplicity of being able to access the telephone through their radio.

Since the final system’s deployment in mid 2013, Murray Irrigation has started making plans to set up the technology on another site. It is also now considering incorporating Simoco’s Advanced Mobile Suite (SAMS) vehicle and personal tracking solution to track its fleet across the network.