Siemens Wins GSM-R Contracts in India

Siemens has won two new contracts to build mobile rail communication networks in India. East Central Railway and North Central Railway, both subsidiaries of Indian Railways, have contracted with Siemens to build communication platforms on the basis of GSM-Railway (GSM-R) technology. Just last year, Siemens had made the breakthrough in GSM-R business in India with a contract from North Frontier Railways. With these new contracts, Siemens is establishing itself as the GSM-R market leader in this region. The contracts for the two projects are valued at some US$7.5 million.

Within the context of the new projects, over the next twelve months Siemens Communications will be installing the complete network infrastructure for building the GSM-R networks in India and supplying all components required for operation: Switches, base stations, service and administration platforms, as well as mobile handsets for the train engineers.

In addition, Siemens will also be supplying its railway@vantage solution, which contains specific rail applications like Location Dependent Addressing (LDA) and Functional Addressing. By pressing a single key, for example, the train engineer will be able to automatically contact the control center at the nearest station via his GSM-R mobile handset, without having to dial its discrete number.

One of the world's largest railroads, Indian Railways operates a rail network of some 63,000 kilometers in length and 14,000 trains, which carry over a million tons of freight and more than 14 million passengers a day. By gradually equipping its main lines with GSM-R over the course of the coming years, Indian Railways intends to enhance the safety, security and reliability of its rail traffic. This technology, which is based upon the international GSM mobile communication standard, will help to integrate the voice and data applications required for rail communication into a single system."

Posted to the site on 31st May 2005