South Korea: LTE-R roll out from Nokia, to replace GSM-R

[jon0844]

Got this release today and have to wonder if we'll ever see 4G for the railway anytime soon? And if we did, would this be made available beyond mission critical work - extending to rail staff and revenue protection officers?

Nokia to provide Korea Rail Network Authority with world's first LTE-R network to support high-speed railway operations


Highlights:

Project part of modernization of line connecting Wonju and Gangneung in preparation for Korea hosting a major international sporting event in 2018

KRNA to deploy LTE-R technology for modernization of communications network supporting mission-critical services, such as signaling at speeds of up to 250 km/h

14 November, 2016 Espoo, Finland - Nokia has been selected by the*Korea Rail Network Authority (KRNA)*as a supplier for the world's first LTE-R mobile broadband network to support railway operations and employee services. The network will be deployed on a railway line between Wonju and Gangneung as part of preparations for the major international sporting event being hosted by the country in 2018. KRNA is responsible for the development and maintenance of railway infrastructure in South Korea as well as a number of other countries.

The communications network for KRNA will be based on LTE-R technology, a version of 4G LTE technology that is being developed to meet the mission-critical service requirements of railway operators. The network will support both operational and maintenance services on a high-speed commercial railway line operating at speeds of up to 250 km/h.

KRNA's LTE-R network will provide secure, reliable, high-speed connectivity between trains, stations and other railway facilities between Wonju and Gangneung. The network will also be designed to interoperate with other LTE networks supporting public safety and maritime operations as well as legacy VHS (very high frequency) and TRS (trunked radio system) radio networks. This project is intended to serve as a model for future LTE-R deployments, and help further define LTE-R standardization efforts.

For this project, Nokia will supply radio access network (RAN) base stations (eNodeBs) along with Nokia NetAct(TM), the first major virtualized network management software for mobile networks. NetAct delivers best-in-class applications for the railway operations and employee services management of KRNA. It also delivers advanced assurance capabilities as part of Nokia's comprehensive, multi-domain Service Assurance program, which provides closed-loop automation to drive greater network agility and optimization.Nokia*systems integration*and deployment services will help to establish the new LTE-R network.

Andrew Cope, head of Korea at Nokia, said:*"South Korea has been a world leader in the use of mobile broadband technology to make public services of all kinds safer, more efficient and reliable. With a thirty-year history in the delivery of GSM-R mobile networking technology for railways, and as a pioneer in the development of LTE-R solutions, we are pleased to partner with KRNA to bring these cutting edge capabilities to the country as they prepare to host one of the world's premier sporting events."

 

[rf_ioliver]

Basically what you get with LTE/4G is data capacity, plus a bunch of other radio services, latency, bandwidth etc.

Theoretically there is no reason why LTE-R/GSM-R could/does not support other services as you state, *but* being specifically designed for service resiliency you would not move non-critical services onto that platform when "normal" 4G/3G/GSM already exist.

t,

Ian

Disclaimer: I work for Nokia and the above may or may not reflect the options of my employer.

 

[jon0844]

That's fair enough, but I wondered if it a connected future - from ticketing/revenue to onboard information systems, a decision might be taken to being that within a railway network than using public networks.

 

[SpacePhoenix]

It sounds like it could possibly handle online ticket sales for guards's portable ticket machines, maybe even realtime looking up of disruption by a guard. Was on a train last year and the guard looked up the timetable on his ticket machine. Would that have been realtime or from a locally stored copy?

 

[rf_ioliver]

That's fair enough, but I wondered if it a connected future - from ticketing/revenue to onboard information systems, a decision might be taken to being that within a railway network than using public networks.

You need to make a difference between networks and their functionality. GSM-R and any future network technology of this type are specifically designed for system security, integrity and reliability. Using these for non-critical data might be overkill. Furthermore, the data rates might be slower, require specific user equipment (phones etc) plus there are a bunch of additional incompatible parts too, such as the radio technology, SIM cards etc. Basically you want to keep anything that doesn't need specific access to your critical systems away from it.

Ticketing machines etc are not safety critical systems, *but* might use a private network (still GSM, LTE, 4G, 5G etc). Typically such a private system would be used in parallel or even over normal mobile/fixed networks.

Take a look also at TETRA which is similarly designed for critical infrastructure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrestrial_Trunked_Radio

t.

Ian

Disclaimer: see previous message

 

[jon0844]

I know a lot about Tetra. Motorola took me to the Atlanta Olympics to learn about its use, which came in useful when the bomb went off. (We had flown back by then).

I fully understand the want to keep mission critical communications separate, but wondered if that would definitely be the case.