ALCATEL-LUCENT

environments (long tracks, tunnels, cuttings,

bridges) and higher train speeds (from
120km/h for regional trains to 350km/h for
high-speed trains), train operation specicities
can ask for a number of key performance
metrics to be met by whatever technology is
being supplied.
Features such as enhanced roaming, which
offer seamless handover and fast re-association
time, low sensitivity to high train speed (the
Doppler effect), and at a lower frequency band
(e.g. 450 - 700MHz) for long track coverage
and possible use of radiating cable in tunnels,
are all valid requirements that LTE would need
to address if it is to be included in the rail
environment, states Bertout. It is of little
relevance, that even though LTE solutions
are expected to more than double the data
throughput compared to 3G solutions, if
we cant enable coverage to be complete
and service continuity to be guaranteed, the
benets arent worth it.
Technically speaking, LTE offers
approximately 20 times the performance of
GSM/GPRS solutions, and even co-existing
LTE with GSM over 1.4MHz carriers would
provide a competitive service compared to a
typical 3G HSPA solution with 5MHz carrier
requirements. The behavioural patterns of LTE
User Equipment in high mobility environments
are prescribed up to velocities of 120kph
within current specications. With the
increasing number of applications in higher
speed environments, Alain explains. It is
necessary to perform further work for LTE to
ensure higher levels of performance, both in
terms of data rates (throughput) and QoS for
the user in high mobility environments.
A dedicated work item on LTE at speeds
up to 350kph can be justied at the
3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP)
standard level. The scope of this 3GPP work
item could include:
6 www.railwaystrategies.co.uk
N
ew train-borne applications
are now driving the extension
of ground-to-train services
to support a larger mix of
commercial and mission-critical applications,
including: on-board passenger internet
access, passenger entertainment, passenger
information, video surveillance, remote
monitoring of rolling stock. A large number
of these services commonly in use today,
are typically implemented over digital radio
standards such as GSM-R and TETRA, says
Bertout, and have been harmonised by the
UIC (Union International des Chemins de Fer)
to offer voice and data services in complement
to the ETCS (European Train Control System)
signalling.
GSM-R deployments are still progressing
in Europe at different paces according to
local Railway Authority policies, with the
corresponding infrastructure investment
planned to last for about 20 years because of
the scale of investment required. Estimates
range from 400 to 4000 BTS (base stations)
according to the size of deployment, and could
Changing track: ground-to-train
broadband communications
and new train-borne applications
are considering a move to 4G/LTE
In the second of a series
of articles discussing the
evolution of GSM-R to LTE,
ALAIN BERTOUT, senior
solution manager for
vertical market solutions
at Alcatel-Lucent,
introduces some of the
capabilities of LTE that are
driving the evolutionary
path onwards
be thought of as being similar to putting a
complete national mobile network for a small
country, Alain continues.
Whilst this is going on, commercial mobile
operators are looking at progressively phasing
out their GSM services to migrate to LTE
(4G Long Term Evolution). This new standard
technology was designed to be more efcient,
to offer new services and still run on the same
frequency bands as for 2G and 3G systems,
he continues. In December 2008, LTE Rel-8
specication was locked, and in January this
year, the messages format was also ratied.
The LTE standard is now complete enough that
hardware manufacturers have been designing
components, test equipment and base stations
for some time.
Given this ratication, now is certainly the
right time for rail authorities to think about if
and when the industry should take a serious
look at LTE.
Increasing service levels
Currently, the primary objectives for deploying
advanced ground-to-train services are charac-
terised by enhancing or increasing the service
levels for passengers. Other industries have
increased their service quality levels, so in order
to better retain their customers and differenti-
ate themselves in a deregulated train market,
the introduction of in-train video surveillance
to enhance safety, integrated journey plan-
ners, and high-speed connectivity help keep
rail travel in line with these other industries.
Another service growth area, is involved with
the operation aspects of ensuring more secure
communication with their onboard staff, and
the enablement of real-time asset monitoring
and perform proactive maintenance of their
rolling stocks.
As all wireless solutions for rail need to be
analysed carefully in order to meet the specic
challenges of wide and complex railway
ALCATEL-LUCENT
lThe identication of realistic propagation
conditions and multipath models for
high-speed trains
lPerform simulations for base stations
and user equipment in high speed
environment up to 350kph
lDevelop minimum performance
requirements for user equipment in
high-speed conditions
lDevelop minimum performance
requirements for base stations in high-speed
train conditions.

Optimising costs
A pragmatic investment approach must be
taken to optimise cost of ground-to-train
solutions. A solution that dictates the use of
WiFi for 100 per cent of large and complex
mainline rail networks will certainly provide
sub-optimal ROI. However, inside dense urban
areas, where interference of radio signals is a
common occurrence due to large geographical
obstacles encountered, (coverage of railway
stations, tunnels and cuttings), it can be
suitable to deploy a dense WiFi wireless
communication infrastructure.
It is when moving outside of dense city
centres, the public 2G/3G & 4G LTE mobile
broadband solutions denitely become of
interest for rail operators, comments Alain,
and there are two investment sharing options
that could be utilised to help minimise costs.
The rst involves the building of a second
wireless network utilising existing GSM-R towers,
whilst the second one means migrating the
existing GSM-R base stations to LTE.
It would be worthwhile for rail operators,
to perform a cost benets analysis between
building a second network that would be
co-located with the existing GSM-R BTS, or
investing in a major upgrade to the existing
GSM-R network. This analysis would also
need to consider the cost associated in buying
www.railwaystrategies.co.uk 7
additional spectrum and to operate the new
ground-to-train services.
Spectrum allocation and cost brings another
question to the fore. Given the reluctance
for many to spend more resource on new
spectrum, it may be possible to buy available
spectrum adjacent to GSM-R spectrum:
(872 876MHz paired with 917 921MHz),
or leasing commercial 2G/3G/LTE services from
existing spectrum holders. Additional analysis
of non interference with those other 2G /3G
bands also need be undertaken.
Of the current technological advances, it
is those in base station architectures that are
proving to be the most interesting, suggests
Bertout. Based on SDR (Software Dened
Radio), technologies are under development to
migrate smoothly from GSM to GSM + LTE.
This has been designed so that LTE services can
be introduced according to network operator
schedule, and means that it will be possible to
reassign the radio resource of a base station
from 100 base station GSM to 50 per cent
GSM + 50 per cent LTE. Similar techniques
could be envisioned to migrate from GSM-R to
GSM-R + LTE shared infrastructure.
This dual radio transmission is only possible
thanks to MIMO. Multiple-Input-Multiple-
Output (MIMO) refers to employing multiple
antennas at both the transmitter and the
receiver together with signal processing
algorithms. This will communicate multiple
streams of information in parallel and cancel
mutual interference between these streams.
One of the more promising congurations is
a 2x2 MIMO that has two transmit antennas
and two receive antennas.
In conjunction with MIMO, other
enhancements such as Intelligent Antenna
and Beam Forming can offer a more efcient
transmission mechanism. These developments
refer to steering or switching narrow beams
in the direction of mobile users of interest. It
John Pettitt show
s som
e of the visitors the new
factory
allows interference reduction in the directions
far away from the user, hence increasing
capacity, explains Alain. Frequency reuse
reduces interference by assigning different
portions of frequency spectrum to the
neighbouring sectors. Advanced variants of
frequency reuse such as fractional frequency
reuse (FFR) in systems such as LTE provide both
capacity and user experience improvement.
As an alternative, there are new mobile
routers coming on the market that can cope
with both licensed (3G) and unlicensed
wireless technologies (WiFi). These new mobile
routers exploit, in parallel, several wireless
systems (2G/3G/WiMAX/LTE), and they all
implement automatic and dynamic selection of
the optimal radio communication option. One
evolutionary path could be to leverage these
mobile router capabilities with existing wireless
technologies, before LTE become fully available
on future rail communication network.
To prepare this transition to LTE, Alcatel-
Lucent is encouraging companies from multiple
industries to join its ng Connect Program
that is focused on removing the business and
technical barriers to rapid innovation and
service creation and delivery.
To remove these barriers, the Alcatel-
Lucents ng Connect Program delivers Proofs
of Concept that validate 4G/LTE applications,
and gives members access to a PoC lab,
enthuses Bertout. They can also use customer
demonstration facilities and other facilities to
gather end user research to help you make a
compelling business case, and ensure the right
technology investment is made.
For further information, please contact:
Changing track: ground-to-train
broadband communications
and new train-borne applications
are considering a move to 4G/LTE
n
Alcatel-Lucent UK & Ireland
Tel: 01628 428 200
Email: Robert.m.Herritty@alcatel-lucent.com
Web: www.alcatel-lucent.co.uk