Vienna/Berlin, September 20, 2012 – Kapsch CarrierCom, one of the leading providers of telecommunications solutions for railway operators, demonstrated how the railway communication of the future will look at InnoTrans, one of the most important trade fairs for transportation technology in the world. As a world market leader, the company headquartered in Austria is advancing the development of the GSM-R standard in the direction of IP communication and is highly active in standardization bodies. The new developments in the area of access and core form the foundation for greater safety, higher operating efficiency and also for new applications.
Kari Kapsch, CEO of Kapsch CarrierCom, is very satisfied with accomplishments achieved by the company since taking over the GSM-R division of Nortel in 2010, along with parts of its GSM division: "Not only have we been able to expand the number of railway kilometres equipped with our solutions to more than 70,000 km, we are also working in particular on projects in which we are equipping our customers’ GSM-R networks with the newest technological standard." For example, Kapsch will completely convert the GSM-R network of Deutsche Bahn, the largest in the world, to the 3GPP Release 4 Voice Core technology by 2014.
Kapsch is currently working on new developments in the access and core area. "Our internal development work is closely related to our participation in the standardization bodies," said Kari Kapsch at InnoTrans, putting special emphasis on the aspect of interoperability in international rail transportation, which is to be achieved in Europe via ETCS.
Four topics for greater safety and efficiency in international railway transportation
Kapsch focused on four major topics at its InnoTrans booth. Firstly, the company demonstrated an extensive portfolio for end-to-end solutions that have been and continue to be realized around the globe. The palette here ranges from radio planning (especially for high-speed lines) to integration and interoperability tests, turnkey solutions, on-time project management and an extensive array of training and educational services for customers and partners. The second area revolves around ETCS Level 2 via GPRS technology, a field in which Kapsch is at the forefront. The third area is dedicated to the sustainable and staged migration of GSM-R in the direction of IP, which is a major goal of railway operators. The final topic concerned the expansion of railway communication with additional applications. One example is the lone worker protection application. This GSM network-based application helps improve the safety of line workers and simultaneously enables more efficient utilization of the personnel.
A large player from a small country
With over 700 employees, Kapsch CarrierCom realizes projects around the world and is helping to shape the field of railway communication at many levels. Thomas Schöpf, COO of Kapsch CarrierCom, is convinced that "current developments are the best evidence that Kapsch can improve upon the inheritance from Nortel to help define the future."
Kapsch CarrierCom is a global manufacturer and independent system integrator of telecommunication solutions for railway operators and providers of access, core and transmission networks. In seven R&D centers in Europe and Asia, Kapsch CarrierCom develops applications and services for next generation networks and innovative OSS/BSS solutions. In addition, Kapsch CarrierCom provides an end-to-end service spectrum, which ranges from consulting, designing, installing and integrating, to maintaining, operating and supporting entire networks.
With 70,000 track-kilometers covered by GSM-R, Kapsch CarrierCom is an internationally recognized specialist and partner for railway operators such as the French railway RFF, the German railway DB and Network Rail in the United Kingdom. In the public operator segment, Kapsch CarrierCom’s customers include service providers such as the companies of the Telekom Austria Group, eircom in Ireland and Chunghwa Telecom in Taiwan. Kapsch CarrierCom is part of the Kapsch Group and has its headquarters in Vienna.
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