The Union Government has allocated 5 MHz of spectrum in the coveted 700 MHz band to Indian Railways. Indian Railways will use the spectrum for signalling, voice and data communication, according to a Ministry of Railways statement.
With this, long-standing differences within the government over the issue of allocating expensive spectrum to the Indian Railways seem to be finally resolved.
How Indian Railways plans to use 4G/LTE on its network
The shift to modern technology like Long Term Evolution (LTE) using the 5 MHz newly allocated spectrum will enable Indian Railways to improve operations in several ways. This makes India one of the very few railway networks in the world to deploy LTE based communication systems.
Mobile Train Radio Communication (MTRC)
Indian Railways plans to deploy 4G/LTE based Mobile Train Radio Communication systems on its routes. MTRC is expected to significantly improve communication between station staff, train crews and traffic controllers. While MTRC is already in use on several sections of Indian Railways different technologies and spectrum are in use.
The Railway Ministry has in its statement claimed that the project, estimated to cost Rs. 25,000 crores, will be completed in five years.
Train Collision Avoidance System
LTE based radio links will also be used for wider deployment of Indian Railways’ locally developed Automatic Train Protection technology currently known as Train Collision Avoidance System (TCAS). As of now, simpler and lower bandwidth radio links in the 400 MHz band are used for TCAS.
Switching to LTE is likely to simplify wider deployment of TCAS and significantly improve safety across the Indian Railways network. No timeline has been provided for the switch to LTE so far. It is also unclear how much the switch to LTE will affect the cost of deployment of TCAS.
Asset Management and Tracking
An efficient and high bandwidth LTE link will also enable almost realtime monitoring and management of Indian Railways assets. This will mean wagons, coaches, locomotives and other rolling stock can communicate with Indian Railways’ systems on a regular basis to update their status and relay telemetry information. The organization uses several different technologies and systems to achieve this at present.
In addition, CCTV camera feeds and other communication can also utilize the LTE link for transmitting video, voice and other data from IR premises.
The ministry statement says that “spectrum charges may be levied based on a formula basis as prescribed by the Department of Telecommunications. for Royalty Charges and License Fee for Captive use as recommended by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.” It is unclear what the spectrum will cost Indian Railways.
New spectrum based communication system for safety considerations may be useful. For communication of other data may be costly compared to its need at this stage when Railway finances are in a bad shape.