EUROPE TO GET FASTER AND HIGHER WIRELESS – SEPTEMBER 2005.
Europe’s extensive rail network is a natural magnet for providers keen to extend the reach of their wireless offerings. Several European countries, particularly the UK and Germany, have extensive WiFi facilities on certain main lines, enabling users to surf the Internet travelling. The UK, notably, relies on a different system to its continental neighbours for the practical reason that the Victorian bridges are too low for the antennae which are becoming standard on European trains.
The latest venture is to extend the facility from laptops and PDAs to full mobile functionality on both trains and planes. UMTS RailLink has recently tested its service with a European train company at speeds of 220kph. It claims to support ‘true’ broadband speeds, which effectively means at least 512Kb/s. Crucially, the solution seems to be able to hand-over from base stations without interruption – one of the major problems which beset early trials of the technology.
UMTS RailLink is based on TD-CDMA, the high-speed 3G standard designed for mobile operators, and can be deployed in any of the spectrum bands supported by the technology. This makes it especially viable in Europe where unpaired 2000 1900MHz spectrum is available across the continent, and so cross-border travel without losing the connection is a possible.
Faster still will be mobile phone access on European airline routes. From the end of 2006 passengers will be able to use their mobile phones on commercial flights within the western Europe routes of Air Portugal and the British low-cost carrier bmi. Both carriers are to introduce a voice and text service for mobile phones developed by OnAir, a joint venture of Airbus and the Dutch technology company SITA Information Networking Computing. The three-month trial runs are preliminary to a general release scheduled – tentatively – for 2007. The carriers are to use a specially equipped fleet of Airbus 321s and Airbus 320s for the trial.
Mobile phone users will be able to make and receive calls using a base station within the airplane, but only after the plane reaches an altitude of 10,000 feet. Mobile phones are currently banned on aircraft for fear that they might interfere with a plane’s navigation system as they attempt to log on to terrestrial networks, even though transmission frequencies are generally too low to interfere with avionic equipment. Apart from the technological difficulties and limitations, as well as regulatory hurdles, European carriers now have to contend with considerable security measures which may put a halt to the service before it gets off the ground.
See also:
Europe – Broadband – Wireless Overview and Analysis;
Europe – Mobile Communications – 3G;
Technology – Mobile – 5 – 3G WCDMA.
