BELGIUM: Infrastructure manager Infrabel has awarded Kapsch CarrierCom a 15-year framework agreement covering the migration of its GSM-R communications network from R99/TDM to R4/VoIP and the provision of 12 years of maintenance.
This is intended to provide the functionality and resilience needed for the use of ETCS Level 2 over GPRS. The deployment of redundant voice core platforms for the live and testbed networks is expected to significantly increase the availability of the network, with breakdowns lasting a few seconds rather than several hours. The impact of software upgrades on operations would also be reduced.
Infrabel said the main challenge would be to minimise the number and the duration of interventions required to undertake the migration, and to minimise the risk of affecting voice and data communications during the work.
‘Kapsch is the main GSM-R core network supplier for main railway networks in Europe and proved to be the perfect partner for a seamless migration to the Release 4 (R4) technology’, said Vincent Caudron, GSM-R project lead at Infrabel, when the contract was announced on April 30.
