Communication Options for Mobile Connectivity at the SKA Project Construction Camp

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) astronomical telescope project is one of the biggest scientific projects internationally. It currently consists of 73 telescopes at a site in the arid and remote part of South Africa. The number of telescopes is scheduled to be expanded to 199 in the future. They are highly sensitive and Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) is a constant threat. Construction on the next phase of the project requires a construction camp housing 280 people for the next 2.5 years. The position of the camp is relatively close to the telescope core area. Due to RFI regulations, no emissive device including mobile phones, may be used in the vicinity of the telescope array. Such usage cannot be practically banned for such a long time, as it is required for normal personal communications and business. A controlled and known environment, might be a better alternative and this paper documents some investigations in this regard. It was found that both 4G type Femtocell and WiFi accessibility are feasible, but with restrictions.