GSM-R Goes Live

Germany : Tertio’s Railway Services Management solution (RSM) developed for Deutsche Bahn AG's new GSM-R network, has successfully gone-live enabling the German state of the art railway network to define and activate its range of GSM-R services. Tertio’s unique to market solution is supporting the nation-wide rollout of GSM-R, which is now in use on the high speed track Frankfurt-Cologne, with the overall 26,500km network (phase 1) rolling out by the end of 2004.

Inset is Tertio’s CEO, Nigel Clifford who is quoted below.

GSM-R is a new standard for wireless rail telecommunications endorsed by the International Union of Railways (UIC) based on the tried and tested GSM communications standard with railway specific functionality designed to improve the safety and reliability of railway operations. Tertio’s RSM implementation for Deutsche Bahn (DB) is playing a significant role in ensuring the GSM-R network is up and running for the majority of the national rail network by the end of next year.

One of the main benefits of RSM to DB is the ability to set up, provision and manage GSM-R services through a single easy to use interface delivering huge savings in time, resources and costs. GSM-R services currently being provisioned by RSM include:

• Location Dependent Addressing, which ensures that a short-code emergency call is routed to the nearest relevant railway staff e.g. a train driver can issue an emergency warning of danger on the track to all drivers and staff in the immediate vicinity
• Functional related phone numbers, mean that a train’s functions (e.g. driver, conductor) are assigned a number which remains the same irrespective of the employee working that day
• Definition and management of Group Call Areas, to assign railway employees to a specific group e.g. staff at a large railway station, or track staff in one region. A Voice-Broadcast function, "one to everyone", is used to deliver the message simultaneously to all members of the group from one call.

Tertio was selected by Deutsche Bahn due to its extensive proven experience in the GSM sector, in particular its Provident provisioning solution implemented at T-Mobile U.K.

Tertio’s CEO, Nigel Clifford said, “It is very rewarding to see RSM up and running. We feel privileged to be a part of the dedicated GSM-R teams at DB and Nortel pioneering the roll-out of a new communication system which is going to make rail travel more reliable and safer for us all”.

RSM was developed by Tertio under subcontract from Nortel Networks GmbH who are the prime contractor for the supply of the GSM-R network infrastructure, RSM and other operational support systems.