Skip to main content

Berlin Subway gets 4G/LTE, Getting Ready for 5G

Mobile connectivity is becoming a necessity and this is compelling mobile operators to provide coverage in very hard to reach areas within cities. One such example is in subways and metros where connectivity enhances the overall quality of life for commuters, improves safety and efficiency, and supports the growth of smart, connected urban environments. There are several other advantages like emergency communications, being able to communicate with friends/family/colleagues as and when required, and much more that I an not going to expand here.

Some years back we made an explainer on how connectivity is provided in case of metro/subway here. While there were limited examples available then, we have seen a boom in underground connectivity since then. 

Recently O2 Telefónica in Germany announced (in German, translated via Google translate):

It was now possible for all passengers of the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG) to access high speed connectivity. The Berlin subway, the backbone of Berlin's local transport with well over a million passengers a day, now has a fast and powerful 4G/LTE mobile network from all major mobile providers on all underground routes. This was announced by the BVG and O2 Telefónica as project leaders. This means that not only customers of O2 Telefónica , but also customers of Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone in the Berlin subway benefit from fast mobile communications.

O2 Telefónica has created a completely new mobile communications architecture for the Berlin subway network . Previously, the network technology was distributed across various underground operating rooms along the route network. From now on, four central above-ground data centers - the so-called "BTS Hotels" - offer access to the base stations at any time. This enables the network technicians of the major mobile phone providers to feed in new hardware and software much more quickly . The modern network is being further optimized in order to continuously improve quality in addition to the basic expansion . It also lays the foundation for the 5G expansion. In the first step, the mobile phone providers will set up a powerful 5G supply on the 3.6 gigahertz frequency at Alexanderplatz station.

With nine lines and 175 stations, the capital's subway network, parts of which are more than 100 years old, is one of the oldest and largest in Europe. For the network modernization in the BVG tunnels, the technicians have implemented the most comprehensive indoor mobile communications project in Germany . For the expansion, O 2 Telefónica laid more than 1,000 kilometers of fiber optic cables on the tunnel routes - that corresponds to the distance from Flensburg to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. The telecommunications provider has also laid more than 1,000 kilometers of power and high-frequency cables and installed 360 tunnel antennas, 350 repeaters and 30 base stations

The offer is well received: thanks to the continuous network expansion, the daily data usage of O2 customers on the subway has increased sevenfold to around 35,000 GB since 2019. Thanks to the faster network, people can use their smartphones not only for timetable information, but also at any time during the journey to check social networks such as Instagram or for music and video streaming.

The following video explains this further:

Related Posts: 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Laser Inter-Satellite Links (LISLs) in a Starlink Constellation

When we first talked about Starlink back in 2019 , we saw in the video that the concept involved laser communication to communicate between the satellites. While the initially launched satellites did not have the laser communication mechanism built in, it looks like they are being added to the newer ones.  A report from Fast Company in late 2021 said: One of the next big upgrades in telecom will involve satellites firing lasers at each other—to beam data, not blow stuff up. The upside of replacing traditional radio-frequency communication with lasers, that encode data as pulses of light, can be much like that of deploying fiber-optic cable for terrestrial broadband: much faster speeds and much lower latency. “Laser links in orbit can reduce long-distance latency by as much as 50%, due to higher speed of light in vacuum & shorter path than undersea fiber,” SpaceX founder Elon Musk tweeted in July about the upgrade now beginning for that firm’s Starlink satellite constellation. The
1 comment
Read more

IEEE 802.11bn Ultra High Reliability (UHR), a.k.a. Wi-Fi 8

Back in 2020 we looked at the introductory post of Wi-Fi 7 which was followed up by a more detailed post in Feb 2022. We are now following on with an introductory post on the next generation Wi-Fi.  A new paper on arXiv explores the journey towards IEEE 802.11bn Ultra High Reliability (UHR), the amendment that will form the basis of Wi-Fi 8. Quoting selected items from the paper  below: After providing an overview of the nearly completed Wi-Fi 7 standard, we present new use cases calling for further Wi-Fi evolution. We also outline current standardization, certification, and spectrum allocation activities, sharing updates from the newly formed UHR Study Group. We then introduce the disruptive new features envisioned for Wi-Fi 8 and discuss the associated research challenges. Among those, we focus on access point coordination and demonstrate that it could build upon 802.11be multi-link operation to make Ultra High Reliability a reality in Wi-Fi 8. The IEEE 802.11bn UHR: Whose Study Gro
Post a Comment
Read more

NTT Docomo's Disaster Countermeasures to Keep People Connected

Recently I blogged about Disaster Roaming in 3GPP Release-17. While this will take time to be implemented worldwide, it is already available in Japan, maybe not in the 3GPP standardised way. Similarly, back in 2011, I blogged about Earthquake and Tsunami Warning service (ETWS) from NTT Docomo's Journal, it was two days before the  2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami hit. Japan is no stranger to earthquakes, typhoons, and other natural disasters, which can have a devastating effect on infrastructure. To ensure that the mobile networks keep functioning, operators work extremely hard to ensure people remain connected one way or another. NTT Docomo has released a video detailing the countermeasures to keep everyone connected in case of emergencies. The following detail is provided with the video: DOCOMO's network is no exception, and our services could get cut off by a base station power outage, disconnected fiber-optic cable, or other malfunctions. DOCOMO established the three pr
Post a Comment
Read more