Skip to main content

High speed surfing in France and Italy

Two announcements on the same day – from the OCEA Consortium and from Andrew Solutions - have reported overcoming the challenges of internet access in high-speed trains travelling at over 200mph (320km/h) in France and Italy. The technological achievements realised by the consortium have risen to the challenge of ensuring service at high speed in a high voltage electrical environment, and integrating the system's maintenance into the overall maintenance schedules of a high-speed network with no impact on th
May 18, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
Two announcements on the same day – from the OCEA Consortium and from Andrew Solutions - have reported overcoming the challenges of internet access in high-speed trains travelling at over 200mph (320km/h) in France and Italy.

The technological achievements realised by the consortium have risen to the challenge of ensuring service at high speed in a high voltage electrical environment, and integrating the system's maintenance into the overall maintenance schedules of a high-speed network with no impact on the rotation of trains.

"Providing Internet connectivity at 320 km/h was a new challenge that we are all proud to have successfully addressed for the SNCF," commented Philippe Roger of 5636 Orange Business Services.
Meanwhile, 1983 Telecom Italia called on Andrew Solutions’ 950 CommScope division to provide its equipment, commissioning services, and expertise in support of 2G and 3G wireless networks on 5637 Trenitalia Frecciarossa high speed trains. The Frecciarossa high speed train line is the fastest in Trenitalia’s fleet, with speeds reaching between 300-350 kilometers per hour.

As part of the new coverage and capacity project led by Telecom Italia, Andrew’s in-train solution is extending reliable wireless signals to passengers and staff on all 60 Frecciarossa trains. High speed trains’ metalised windows can dramatically reduce signal penetration into the carriages, resulting in spotty coverage and an increase of dropped calls. The pure speed of high speed trains complicates the hand off of wireless signals between base stations. And the complexities of different terrain and rapidly changing outdoor signal levels of the various networks involved increase the complexity.

Andrew’s wireless coverage solution is helping produce elongated cells that reduce the number of handovers required while boosting signal strength within the handover region. The company supplied about 600 Node AM dual band digital repeaters and kilometres of Radiax radiating cable with connectors and accessories, in addition to helping design and commission the wireless coverage system. An Andrew Node AM repeater, pickup antenna for GSM 900 MHz/UMTS 2100 MHz/GPS frequency bands, and metres of Radiax are installed in each Frecciarossa train carriage.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Mexico expands free-flow tolling’s boundaries
    June 14, 2017
    Mexico is implementing one of the world’s largest remote tolling systems backed by Indra’s technology. By Andrew Bardin Williams. Mexico recently implemented one of the largest remote toll systems in the world, covering 4,000km of the country’s public highways. Deployed and maintained by Spanish consulting and technology company Indra, in cooperation with the public utility Caminos y Puentes Federales (CAPUFE), the system allows drivers to pay tolls without stopping by using a TAG electronic device installe
  • US economic stimulus package highlights ITS technology
    July 17, 2012
    US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood talks to ITS International about economic stimulus funding and the absolute need to maintain and increase the use of technology in transportation. Of the total of $787 billion of funding announced under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the economic stimulus package which was signed into law by US President Barack Obama on 17 February 2009, $48.1 billion will go to the US Department of Transportation (USDOT). Of that, $27.5 billion is for highway in
  • Need for harmonisation in ITS standards
    February 1, 2012
    As the calendar rolls over, and we hop from continent to continent and World Congress to World Congress, where Memoranda of Understanding and cooperation agreements are the headline news, it is easy for those not intimately involved to forget that standards definition is a well-nigh continual process. Significant progress has been made in recent months towards achieving the critical mass and economies of scale which are going to drive development and deployment in, amongst other things, cooperative infrastr
  • Managed motorways, hard shoulder running aids safety, saves time
    January 30, 2012
    The announcement that, in 2012/13, work to extend Managed Motorways to Junctions 5-8 of the M6 near Birmingham in the West Midlands is scheduled to start marks the next step for the UK's hard shoulder running concept, first introduced on the M42 in 2006. The M6 scheme is in fact one of several announced; over the next few years work will start on applying Managed Motorways to various sections of the M1, M25 London Orbital, M60 and M62. According to Paul Unwin, senior project manager with the Highways Agency