OPERATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATION SYSTEM

Challenge

Today, railway organizations are facing very challenging times in terms of operational telephony (r)evolution. A lot of factors are contributing to the complexity of voice communications in the railway industry like: COTS components, IP, user friendly GUI, interoperability with GSM-R, legacy analogue radio; PBX’s and other third-party systems.

Solution

NIS-Rail is specifically adapted to the requirements of rail operators.

The network-wide, dynamic role and profile management function allows the user to sign on at any dispatcher terminal in the system, giving the operator complete flexibility as the dispatcher is not restricted to a particular location. Any user can log on to any terminal in the system at any time.

The GSM-R module in the NIS-Rail system delivers all the functionality required of a fully IP-based GSM-R dispatcher system. In addition to dispatcher functions, the GSM-R dispatcher terminal can handle all the rail operator's communication functions, so just one device is needed for all communication requirements. With this fully IP-based system, standard telephony, PA system and analogue radio are combined on a single dispatcher terminal, with the associated financial benefits. The developers at Ascom made it their priority to design a system that could be fully integrated in existing communication networks.

NIS uses cluster technology to ensure very high availability, and the fully meshed interconnection in multi-node systems keeps the system operational even in the event of network failure.

The system architecture makes it easy to scale both vertically and horizontally.

In this case, vertical scaling means increasing the power of a node and horizontal scaling means adding another node to the network. The preferred approach depends on the chosen system design.

Advantages

NIS-Rail is a fully IP-based operator telecommunication system that offers the highest level of stability and reliability thanks to its fully meshed network concept.

The ComNodes (communication nodes) are fully interconnected. Because the system can be scaled to any size, the degree of centralization can be adjusted to the operator's particular structure.

Another key advantage of the consistent IP approach is that the system only needs one IP network connection for communication between components, which means lower operating costs.

The operational telecom system from Ascom is continually being developed, with more than 100 installations currently in operation at infrastructure operators.