01.03.07
Nomad Digital acquires QinetiQ Rail
Nomad Digital, providers and operators of specialist mobility networks, has announced its acquisition of QinetiQ Rail, the commercial rail division of QinetiQ, one of the UK’s leading defence and security technology companies.
Nomad has developed the world’s first deployment of a communication system to trains using IEEE802.16 (WiMax) and is the largest operator of a pre-WiMax network in the UK. It is a privately owned company formed in early 2002 by Graeme Lowdon and Nigel Wallbridge and was the first company in the UK to trial WiFi on trains.
It now provides advanced WiMax and WiFi services for passengers and staff on board trains across the UK and North America. Last year, it announced prestigious contract wins with Virgin Trains and the Heathrow Express.
Nigel Wallbridge, executive chairman of Nomad Digital, said: "This acquisition is part of Nomad's high growth strategy in the provision of mobile wireless services to the rail transportation sector, giving us further traction in this specialist market. The transportation sector is full of opportunities for a wide range of WiMax broadband and narrowband mobile wireless services and it is largely under served by conventional mobile network operators. The acquisition will strengthen our existing market leading technical capabilities, but more significantly, enhance our offering of value added on-train services, such as live CCTV, train operating system applications, more reliable train-to-shore communications and entertainment services for passengers. By retaining an interest in Nomad, QinetiQ has demonstrated its conviction that we have a strong business here."
Wi-Fi is the standard system used on trains. It is built into most laptops as standard but can struggle to provide continuous access and connectivity. WiMax is an evolving fixed-wireless technology based on the 802.16 standard which allows for high speed connectivity of up to 49 Mbps bi-directionally to and from the train. It is very fast, has a lower latency, higher capacity, and more people in the train can use it at one time.
“The technology behind WiMax is analogous to a mobile phone network,” says Graham Lowdon. “In a GSM you have base stations spread out over the country and the user has a handset and seamlessly roams between the base stations. The networks we build are exactly the same – it’s just that our base stations are focused mainly on railway lines and railway route instead. Instead of a handset we have a black box which sits on the train itself and the black box roams between the individual base stations as the train carries along on its journey. The other key difference is cellular networks tend to be fairly narrow band in terms of bandwidth whereas the specialist networks we build for trains are very high band width and very low latency.
“We try to make sure the base stations we put in place provide connectivity through tunnels,” says Graham. “It’s a very good technology for use underground. We think there’s a big opportunity for live CCTV coverage on underground trains using this technology because it works underground and the bandwidth is large enough to support high quality full motion video and transmission from moving trains.”
Last month, Nomad completed a successful demonstration of the first US wireless CCTV communication from on board a passenger train, using WiMax as the backhaul, for the Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority (CCJPA). The proof of concept (POC) was conducted on a moving train and the uninterrupted high speed communication was enabled by Nomad's unique wireless technology.
A CCTV camera was installed at trackside near a train station and used WiMAX technology for connectivity to the train. CCTV video, streamed from the trackside to the train, proved to be of sufficient quality to be used for general safety measurements. Trackside CCTV, in particular images from dangerous grade level crossings, forwarded straight to the train engineer, allowed him to anticipate any potential obstructions on the track prior to reaching the actual station.
In the other direction - from the train to the shore - CCTV video stream could be sent to the management centre, and in case of danger situations, law enforcement agencies would be able to react in a timely fashion. The total bandwidth demonstrated during the trial was sufficient for CCTV and the other applications CCJPA/BART is envisioning to use on their trains.
So what is the future of on board entertainment on trains? “What’s been missing has been very high bandwidth connection to the train to allow onboard content to be kept up to date or even fully live.
“We’ve done a lot of work on a project in Holland where we deliver huge quantities of data to provide up to date onboard TV news. What we’ll find is, by having a broadband connection to the outside world, the content can be kept up to date, particularly with regard to news. The commercial models distributing content to passengers become more interesting because you can have online permanent gateways - so the way you can distribute content to passengers will become more innovative. We are working with a number of onboard entertainment companies to deliver. They provide the content, we provide the connectivity.”
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