UK govt finds £200,000 under sofa to kick off research into improving mobile connectivity on nation's crap railways
- Reference: 1595601249
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/07/24/200k_uk_investment_railway_connectivity/
- Source link:
The commitment follows the release of [1]the Mott MacDonald Report , which outlines a feasibility study into the mounting of wireless antennas onto overhead line equipment (OLE) structures.
OLE structures are found on a third of the UK's rail network that supports electrified trains. These routes are primarily the ones connecting major cities like the East Coast Main Line connecting London to Edinburgh; the Liverpool and Manchester Railway; and the West Coast Main Line, which links Liverpool and London.
Network operators are now being urged to develop prototype hardware that can be deployed on a live railway environment. A report describing the findings is expected to be published in March next year.
"It is just not good enough that passengers' mobile connectivity experience is still poor, blighting our efforts to work, shop and communicate on everyday journeys," said Transport Secretary Grant Shapps in a statement.
"By harnessing innovation and updating existing infrastructure, we can build the railway of tomorrow and find affordable solutions to improve travel for passengers. I urge telecom operators to match our ambition and we can commit to working closely together to design equipment and move forward in the next stage of this exciting trial."
We're sure that anyone who has spent cumulative days in a Virgin Trains Pendolino struggling to download emails while the sensation disappears from their left arse cheek will welcome this news. Maybe, as a coup de grâce, Shapps can do something about the wait to use the bog too. ®
Get our [2]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mounting-small-cells-and-wireless-antennas-on-railway-overhead-line-equipment-structures-feasibility-study
[2] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: West coast mainline
It does but by the government's (and many other people's) definition the "north" stops at Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester.
Almost beer o'clock and time for a good northern brew!
Not enough money!
But if we do research with what we have, we can say we tried.
Please, Sir, could you spend that on t' Norf?
I've been wondering to myself why this isn't already a thing for ages:
https://www.facebook.com/ben.curthoys/posts/10154848262727110
https://twitter.com/bencurthoys/status/1112998358652727297
I'm sure it's harder than I think it is, but I am surprised that no mobile company has started doing it themselves before now.
Should have been designed into or alongside GSM-R
Exactly that^^^^
Re: Should have been designed into or alongside GSM-R
GSM-R was/is only made by two suppliers - Siemens and Ericsson. the rest quite rightly concluded it was commercially non-viable and a waste of development time.
To be fair, Railtrack did ask the UK operators to quote for it to be installed on WCML but they all declined as the cost was too high and Railtrack only wanted to pay 'on use' and as the operators could generate more revenues on Oxford Street in a day that the WCML would generate in a year, it was a complete non-starter. I know this as I was there.
The main reason why its a problem is the nice, metal laminated windows on the trains and the lack of available inter-carriage connections. You might stick an aerial on one carriage but you cannot route RF through the carriages on the inside very easily, so you're stuck with putting aerials on the top of the train right next to the second biggest source of RF interference where the power lines run parallel with the train.
And as GSM-R is a safety critical system, theres no way anyone on the safety side is going to allow the two infrastructures to join up.
GSM-R was certainly only built for 3G at best on WCML as the good old whining public didnt want to pay for Railtrack to straighten out the curves and lift the track to ground level to speed up journeys and as a result make it better RF coverage from existing towers.
GSM-R was/is only made by two suppliers - Siemens and Ericsson. The rest quite rightly concluded it was commercially non-viable and a waste of development time.
To be fair, Railtrack did ask the UK operators to quote for it to be installed on WCML in the late 90's but they all declined as the cost was too high and Railtrack only wanted to pay 'on use' and as the operators could generate more revenues on Oxford Street shops in a day, at no cost, that the WCML would generate in a year, it was a complete non-starter. I know this as I was there in the discussions. Railtrack as they were then were shocked to find that nobody was interested in them.
The main reasons why its a problem is the nice, metal laminated windows, the sealed metal boxes of the trains and the lack of available inter-carriage connections. You might stick an aerial on one carriage but you cannot route RF through the carriages on the inside very easily, so you're stuck with putting aerials on the top of the train right next to the second biggest source of RF interference where the power lines run parallel with the train.
And as GSM-R is a safety critical system, theres no way anyone on the safety side is going to allow the two infrastructures to join up.
GSM-R was certainly only built for 3G at best on WCML as the good old whining public didnt want to pay for Railtrack to straighten out the curves and lift the track to ground level to speed up journeys and as a result make it better RF coverage from existing towers.
West coast mainline
I thought it went to Glasgow? Hmm, perhaps it has been stopped due to lockdown?