New Afton LTE/5G rollout with Ambra: digitalisation takeaways for mine engineers
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on International Mining – News
30 Second Briefing
New Afton copper-gold mine in British Columbia is rolling out an Ambra Solutions private LTE and 5G network to support a major underground digitalisation push across one of New Gold’s two core assets. The high-bandwidth, low-latency system is being installed through complex underground headings to enable real-time telemetry, high-definition video and remote control of mobile equipment. For mine engineers, the move signals rapid expansion of data-dependent applications such as autonomous or tele-remote loaders, location tracking and condition monitoring in a deep, geotechnically challenging orebody.
Technical Brief
- Real-time telemetry supports automated trigger-action safety responses, such as geofence-based speed limiting and exclusion zones.
- Location tracking of underground personnel and equipment improves muster verification and emergency response routing.
- Cybersecurity hardening of the private network is critical to prevent malicious interference with tele-remote and autonomous safety systems.
- Similar LTE/5G deployments in deep mining environments are likely to become a de facto layer in critical control systems.
Our Take
Among our 1102 Mining stories, relatively few Canada-based copper-gold operations like New Afton are framed under the 'Product' and 'Safety' tags together, signalling that New Gold is positioning this digital rollout as a risk and operations play rather than just an IT upgrade.
Compared with other recent copper-gold coverage in British Columbia, such as Hudbay’s New Ingerbelle expansion permitting, New Afton’s LTE/5G focus suggests operators in the province are now pairing life-extension or brownfield strategies with communications modernisation to squeeze more value and control from existing assets.
For underground copper-gold mines like New Afton, private LTE/5G typically enables higher device density and location accuracy than legacy leaky-feeder systems, which in practice can support tighter traffic management, proximity detection and real-time equipment health monitoring in constrained headings.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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