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Idhries Ahmad
BANGALORE: Nortel Networks got a major shot in the arm after Indian Railways handed the company a multi-million contract to provide wireless communications along the 751-km, 90-station line in Uttar Pradesh.
The wireless system will connect the industrial and business centres of Ghaziabad and Mugalsarai and will be used to connect train conductors, on-board crew, train dispatchers, station personnel and other operations groups.
The contract, a part of the railway’s plan to build and modernize a nationwide broadband backbone, is the largest of its type awarded by Indian Railways to date. The Uttar Pradesh signaling and communications contract was secured by a regional consortium consisting of Ansaldo Signal, its Asia Pacific subsidiary Union Switch & Signal, MR Trading and Leighton Asia (Southern) Limited. Nortel was contracted by Leighton for the GSM-R network.
For Nortel, the contract is a big catch as the company looks to garner a major share in the railway’s plan to modernize its 62,800 -km-long track connecting over 7,000 stations across India.
On completion of the project, Nortel hopes that Indian Railways will implement its GSM- R Networks across the country. "We don’t term it as a pilot project per se, but after its successful implementation of the GSM R Network, it is but natural that Nortel solution will get a headway and will be an ideal network for Indian Railways across the country”, said Neeraj Kumar Singh, Director Carrier networks, India, Nortel.
Neeraj termed the deal as major one for the company as it will increase the company’s chances of wider implementation of Nortel’s GSM-R networks, "The final decision is with Indian Railways to decide whether they will be using our GSM-R networks throughout the country. But after the contract is successfully implemented, it will serve a good base to start from”, commented Neeraj.
Earlier in 2004, Nortel was chosen as the sole provider of GSM-R solution to the Eastern Railway in West Bengal.
Nortel did not specify the time frame for the completion of the project. "The project is in a very nascent stage. It involves a huge geographical area and it would be too premature to say when the project will be completed," said Neeraj
Nortel ‘s GSM-R network is billed by the company as the latest wireless communication standard for railway networks and has been developed under European Union sponsorship to assist railways in achieving their goal of network interoperability.
Nortel has earlier implemented the GSM-R network for railways networks in China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, India, Italy, Spain, Slovakia, and the UK.
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