Huawei says it has completed interoperability testing of its GSM-R railway mobile communications infrastructure - which it is providing to NSW RailCorp - with GSM-R terminal equipment from Frequentis and Funkwerk that will be used by RailCorp.
GSM-R (Global System for Mobile Communications – Railway) is a standardised variant of the GSM technology for railway communications and applications.
In January 2010 Huawei was appointed by NSW RailCorp as the sole supplier of a GSM-R network for its metropolitan rail network, and it says that Frequentis' and Funkwerk's products will be used in this network.
The test examined the interaction of Huawei's GSM-R system, including SMSC (short message service centre), HLR (home location register), Softswitch MSC (mobile switching centre), BSC (base station controller) and BTS (base transceiver station) equipment with "all features and interfaces of Frequentis' dispatching system and Funkwerk's cab radio system," Huawei said.
"This test has demonstrated that the three parties' systems are perfectly compatible and conform to EIRENE (European Integrated Railway Radio Enhanced Network) specifications."
"The success of this interoperability test demonstrates that Huawei's GSM-R system is able to provide fully customised features such as 1800MHz frequency radio system, intelligent Network (IN) interface and short message service in Australia's network," said Mr Xu Zhiyu, vice president of Huawei's GSM-R product line.
Australia got its first GSM-R network in 2009 when Victoria's Department of Transport contracted Nokia Siemens Networks and Siemens Mobility to supply a $150m system for its urban rail network to support voice and data communication between train drivers and ground-based operational staff.
Paul Tyler, head of Nokia Siemens Networks, Australia and New Zealand, said at the time "This project is ... the result of a long campaign to have GSM-R accepted as the preferred Australian standard of future train radio systems."
Victorian public transport minister Lynne Kosky, said: "This means that for the first time, railways in Australia have adopted a coordinated and consistent standard across the nation. This is a step toward achieving the ultimate goal of having one coordinated radio system across the nation."
However while NSW might be going down the GSM-R track, Australian Rail Track has taken a different approach. Two years earlier it had awarded a $85m contract to provide communications along 10,000kms of its network using its Next G network supplemented by Iridium satellite services in remote areas.
Huawei claims to have more than 5,000km of contracted GSM-R lines and railway customers across three continents and to be "one of a few end-to-end GSM-R solution suppliers in the world.
Along with Nokia Siemens and Huawei, Nortel was one of the few suppliers of GSM-R technology and, at the time it went bankrupt it claimed to be the market leader in GSM-R. It sold its GSM-R business to Kapsch CarrierCom AG of Germany, which now claims that mantle.
