Telstra, one of Australia's leading telecommunications companies, has introduced a new end-to-end Industrial Automation capability targeted at evolving the country's major sectors. Telstra intends to empower businesses by simplifying the difficulties involved with Industry 4.0 by leveraging the experience of its subsidiaries, Aqura Technologies and Alliance Automation, its joint venture with Quantium and its extensive network infrastructure, including 5G, fiber and IoT.
Telstra Enterprise Group Executive David Burns highlighted the issues that Australia's heavy sectors, such as mining, construction, supply chain and manufacturing, face. Telstra's objective, according to Mr. Burns, is to work closely with these firms to address their most pressing concerns, such as the integration of siloed IT and OT systems, cybersecurity threats, environmental management, technical skills shortages, and legacy system management.
“When people think of Telstra, they often think about networks. But we’re so much more than that now. Over the past few years, we’ve built a holistic ecosystem of highly specialised Industrial Automation capabilities. This includes industrial networks and IoT through Aqura, automation engineering, IT/OT integration and OT cybersecurity through Alliance Automation, and data and AI through our Quantium joint venture — not to mention the technology and expertise from Telstra Purple and our partners.”
Telstra's comprehensive Industrial Automation expertise includes private networks, IoT, IT/OT convergence, cybersecurity, analytics and AI, cloud and edge, as well as professional and managed services. Mr. Burns believes that the combination of Telstra's knowledge and cutting-edge technology has the potential to significantly impact Australia's heavy industries, notably in terms of worker safety and automation.
“One of the big opportunities we see is in increasing the safety of workers and automation in our heavy industries. For example, we’ve been working with Newcrest and Ericsson to trial underground private 4G and 5G networks at their Cadia gold mine — one of the largest gold operations in Australia — on the back of the fully operational above-ground 4G network,” explained Mr. Burns.
Telstra is optimistic about the potential presented by its Industrial Automation capability. The company intends to deepen its ties with heavy industries, unlock commercial value and achieve beneficial outcomes for both people and the environment by combining domain expertise, a robust ecosystem of specialized partners and cutting-edge technology and network infrastructure.
