MALVERN -- Rajant Corp. said Wednesday it was selected by the Iron Ore Co. of Canada to supply the primary communications platform for the mining operation in Labrador City in northeastern Canada.

The contract is the second-biggest for the 6½-year-old Rajant, which was formed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the reported communications breakdowns that plagued emergency responders.

"It is a big deal for us," Glenn Booth, Rajant's vice president of marketing, said of the contract. "There's a lot of moving pieces. No one else can do mobility communications like we can."

Iron Ore Co., or IOC, will use a mine-wide Rajant BreadCrumb wireless mesh network to run multiple mining applications such as dispatch and health monitoring of capital equipment. The wireless network will be comprised of both fixed, stationary systems and a high number of mobile wireless systems all simultaneously interconnected.

The company said thousands of its BreadCrumb systems are deployed worldwide, including its largest mine-wide installation at the Rio Tinto-owned Kennecott Utah Copper mine at Bingham Canyon.

IOC is Canada's largest iron ore producer and a leading global supplier of iron ore pellets and concentrates.

Owned by Rio Tinto (58.7 percent), Mitsubishi Corp. (26.2 percent), and the Labrador Iron Ore Royalty Income Fund (15.1 percent), IOC maintains its head office in Montreal, Quebec.

The facility began operation in 1962 and has produced more than one billion tons of crude ore with an average iron content of 39 percent.

"We selected the Rajant solution because of its ability to scale to our always-changing mine configuration. We also needed a network system that could handle our tough environment," said Robert Kuhne, mine management and control coordinator for IOC. "Their support has been second to none."

Rajant, with 40 employees in Malvern and contractors around the world, was form

ed after the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001, showed a need for temporary mobile wireless networks, Booth said.

"The police could not talk to the fire responders and the cellular was basically knocked out," Booth said. "The people who use (BreadCrumbs) need a certain amount of ruggedness, and they also need it to be kept simple."

Such is the case at the IOC mine, where mainly gold is harvested.

"Because of the conditions in Labrador City, we knew they would require a wireless mesh system that could handle the extreme temperatures, wind, vibration and dust," said Gary Anderson, senior vice president of mining for Rajant. "Already this year, they have had temperatures of -40 degrees Celsius and it is not uncommon to have winds over 100 mph."

Rajant's main markets are mines, first responders and the military.

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