Multi-constellation connectivity architecture for a major Australian mining corporation

Challenge

The client operates distributed mining and ports infrastructure across the Pilbara, central Queensland, and the Northern Territory, with remote operations centres in Perth and Brisbane monitoring more than forty sites simultaneously. The operating environment depends on connectivity for three distinct workloads: deterministic, low-latency control of an autonomous haul fleet at the larger operations; remote SCADA and asset-management telemetry across processing plants, port handling, and rail corridors; and the high-bandwidth video, ESG telemetry, and ERP traffic required by the remote operations centre model.

The connectivity estate inherited from the prior decade combined microwave point-to-point, geosynchronous satellite for narrowband telemetry, Iridium for safety-critical voice, and emerging Starlink trials at a small number of sites. The operating reality was that no single connectivity service met all three workload classes, the procurement contracts for each service had been negotiated in isolation over several years, and the operational technology integration of the four services had been done by the asset operator's site engineers rather than as an architected programme.

The Amazon Leo commercial launch announcement, combined with growing pressure on autonomous haul deployment timelines and ESG telemetry obligations, created a forcing function the client did not have the internal advisory capability to address inside its decision window. The procurement and operations functions were aligned on the need for a strategy engagement; they were not aligned on the answer.

Approach

CBS Group ran a LEO Transition Strategy engagement at fixed fee over eight weeks, followed by a three-month Procurement and Commercial Architecture engagement that translated the strategy into the contractual structure the client took to market.

The strategy phase examined the connectivity estate through the asset-management discipline CBS Group has developed with infrastructure clients — the Commercial Asset Performance, Infrastructure Tailoring And Lifecycle framework. The framework's lens for this engagement was that connectivity is not a procurement category to be optimised on unit cost but an operational technology layer to be optimised on whole-of-life performance contribution to autonomous haul throughput, remote operations centre productivity, and regulatory reporting reliability.

Three architectural options were tested against the board's risk appetite: a single-constellation primary architecture with diversity links as resilience; a multi-constellation primary architecture with workload-class routing between constellations; and a hybrid fixed-LEO-mobile architecture that retained microwave for the core autonomous haul precincts and used LEO for the surrounding telemetry and ERP traffic. Each was tested against deterministic latency requirements for autonomous haul, sovereign data residency for ESG telemetry, supplier concentration risk on a multi-decade investment, and the operational technology security architecture the client was committed to under IEC 62443.

The procurement architecture phase translated the chosen pathway into the commercial structure. The three contracts CBS Group recommended — primary LEO service, secondary LEO service, and incumbent geosynchronous transition contract — priced the supplier's commercial position against operational outcomes the client had specified, not against bandwidth at unit cost. Sovereign data residency and OT security requirements were structured as enforceable contract obligations with measurable acceptance criteria, not as schedules to a service description. The supplier-concentration risk on autonomous haul, which the client was prepared to carry under the prior architecture, was priced into the commercial model and allocated to the party best able to manage it.

The engagement was constellation-agnostic and vendor-neutral throughout. CBS Group held no commercial relationship with any satellite operator, mobile network operator, or systems integrator that participated in the subsequent market process.

Outcome

The board approved the multi-constellation pathway with workload-class routing, accepting the higher commercial cost over a single-constellation pathway as the price of the resilience and supplier-concentration position the strategy made visible.

The procurement engagement concluded with three executed contracts covering the forty operating sites, the autonomous haul fleet primary connectivity, the remote operations centre traffic, and a verified ESG telemetry path that satisfies the client's audit obligations. The transition has been sequenced to retire the geosynchronous satellite contracts as their commercial windows expire, without operational disruption to the SCADA estate during cutover.

The autonomous haul fleet experienced no degradation in fleet management system availability through the cutover quarter. The remote operations centre teams reported a measurable reduction in escalations from sites that had previously been on the geosynchronous primary path.

Metrics

• 8 weeks — fixed-fee strategy engagement
• 3 months — procurement and commercial architecture engagement
• 40+ remote sites — covered under the new architecture
• 3 contracts — primary LEO, secondary LEO, transitional geosynchronous
• 0 — autonomous haul fleet management system availability incidents during cutover quarter
• Multi-constellation — primary architecture with workload-class routing