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The promising sector of GSM-Railway (GSM-R) technology, which provides digital wireless and IP railway communications, has reached a major milestone. Huawei’s (News - Alert) enhanced GSM-R just passed an independent compliance test, making it the first supplier of GSM-R to pass such an independent compliance and reliability test.

That achievement will definitely help promote it in the marketplace. "Demand for the Abis over IP feature has been growing and the completion of these tests is a significant development for the railway industry," David Xu, Huawei's general manager of enterprise wireless products, said in a statement quoted by the Railroad Journal. "We can now offer our GSM-R Abis over IP feature to railway companies in Europe and around the world, which have long been waiting for the launch of this technology."

Among its many benefits, Huawei’s GSM-R Abis over IP consolidates two transmission networks into one. That lets operators merge existing GSM-R networks into a single IP-based transmission system. By consolidation, there will be lower costs, as well. For instance, expenses to run separate time-division-multiplexing (TDM) will lessen, as will training expenses.

Railways may replace TDM-based technology with IP-based networks. That could lead to more flexibility, performance and lessen operating costs.

GSM-R provides voice communications for emergency calls, maintenance, shunting yards, and wireless train dispatching. It can be used to for transferring of diagnostic data, as well as freight and passenger information.

By using the European Integrated Railway Radio Enhanced Network (EIRENE) specifications, the system is used in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, The Netherlands and Spain. Nations in the Middle East and Asia may deploy it soon, too, with China an important future market building on current use.

China’s Datong-Qinhuangdao line (Da-Qin line) was the first railroad line in the nation using the GSM-R system, Huawei said in an online statement. Other branch lines, such as the Qian-Cao line and Beitongpu have seen GSM-R wireless networks expanded for their use, too.