PPK ME is a key player in Australia's underground mining equipment sector. With a focus on safety, innovation, and servicing hard-to-reach regions, PPK ME runs operations across several remote and regional sites. As the business expanded its mining solutions footprint, legacy connectivity infrastructure began to pose serious challenges, resulting in increased costs, poor reliability, and performance bottlenecks that hindered operational efficiency.
With operations spanning multiple geographically dispersed locations, many in underserved mining regions, PPK ME’s traditional WAN architecture was no longer viable. The business faced mounting carrier costs, inconsistent uptime, and limited responsiveness, particularly in areas without reliable MPLS access. These issues directly impacted equipment servicing, real-time diagnostics, and the broader digital transformation efforts the company was pursuing.
Realizing that its outdated network no longer supported the needs of a dynamic mining equipment business, PPK ME sought a resilient and future-proof alternative.
Inlight IT was brought in to design a next-generation networking solution that could meet PPK ME’s current demands and future ambitions.
The goal was to reduce ongoing WAN costs, which were becoming a material operational burden. PPK ME also required more resilient connectivity in regional locations, where network outages had impacted productivity. Performance improvements across cloud, VoIP, and business-critical SaaS platforms were another top priority, along with tighter security and visibility. Finally, the solution needed to be flexible enough to grow with PPK ME’s evolving technology landscape and innovation investments.
Inlight IT delivered a customised Fortinet Secure SD-WAN solution tailored to PPK ME’s distributed operational footprint. This solution was further enhanced with Starlink satellite connectivity for locations lacking reliable terrestrial broadband.
At the core of the deployment was Fortinet’s SD-WAN technology, which offered centralised orchestration, dynamic traffic routing, and deep security integration. Inlight paired this with Starlink to provide high-speed, low-latency connectivity to regional sites - ensuring no location was left behind. The architecture included intelligent failover between primary and secondary links, bolstered by cloud-based network performance monitoring and alerting for full transparency and proactive management.
The results were immediate and measurable. PPK ME achieved a 40–60% reduction in WAN-related costs, freeing up budget for innovation and infrastructure expansion. Across the board, connectivity became more stable and responsive, especially at remote sites that had previously suffered from outages and poor bandwidth.
With intelligent failover mechanisms and dynamic path selection in place, the business now operates with greater confidence and less downtime. Application performance across cloud, voice, and collaboration tools improved significantly, enhancing day-to-day user experience. Just as importantly, the new architecture positioned PPK ME for secure and scalable future growth, without being locked into costly legacy contracts.
"Inlight IT’s SD-WAN solution gave us not just savings, but control. Now, our operations are connected, visible, and ready to scale."
In industries where agility and innovation are paramount, outdated connectivity can be a major barrier. This deployment gave PPK the flexibility to move beyond expensive MPLS contracts and adopt a network strategy aligned with its high-growth, tech-driven roadmap.
Now, with full performance visibility, automated redundancy, and high-speed satellite integration, PPK’s IT team is empowered to proactively support business operations, rather than constantly reacting to outages and constraints.
Technologies Deployed: Fortinet Secure SD-WAN | FortiManager & FortiAnalyzer | Starlink Satellite Internet | Redundant 4G LTE Backup