How Port Nelson overhauled its operations with private 5G

Some 80% of New Zealand’s wine is grown and produced in the Marlborough region, making Port Nelson a critical trading gateway for the island nation. The busy port also ships forestry products, dairy, and seafood. In 2025, during a time of global trading challenges and domestic economic difficulties, 3.2m tons of goods were moved through the port, with wine as one of the best performers.

“We’ve just celebrated 10 years where we organize supply-chain solutions for glass bottles coming in, and glass bottles going over the hill, getting filled, and the wine coming back,” says Reagan Pattison, general manager of business transformation at Port Nelson.

Despite solid economic results, some areas of the business were underperforming, and Port Nelson went into 2026 with a mission to lift productivity and bolster safety. However, persistent Wi‑Fi dead spots, dropouts, and inefficiencies in warehouse operations were hampering efforts to reach growth targets. “Connectivity was becoming a real operational constraint for us,” says Pattison.

Trial and error in searching for Wi-Fi improvements

Within the warehouses, palletized bottled wine and empty wine bottles are moved in and out of the port, and forklift operators scan every pallet moved as part of inventory and logistics processes. But there were problems. High‑density stacked storage in the warehouses, along with the complex design of the broader port site, blocked Wi-Fi in many areas, leading to operating problems and employee aggravation.

“Staff frustration was coming up in a lot of different forums, where Wi‑Fi was being raised as the issue, and people were having to change their process because they couldn’t get a consistent connection with the Wi‑Fi,” Pattison says.

Interference was also coming from Bluetooth and electric forklifts, and, at night, the system faced dropouts due to an uptick in residential wireless internet usage. “One of the most ridiculous ones we’ve found was when the forklift reverses, they have a…