Siemens Mobility and Ondas Networks Bring Next-Gen Wireless Communications to North American Rail Market

Siemens Mobility, a leader in seamless, sustainable, reliable and secure transport solutions for more than 160 years, has entered into an exclusive partnership with Ondas Networks, a developer of private licensed wireless data networks for mission-critical industrial markets, to bring a Siemens-branded portfolio of their wireless radio communication systems to the North American Rail Market. Ondas’ MC-IoT architecture is designed to provide railroads with wireless networks that are built specifically for mission critical use and meet stringent demands for low latency, high reliability, availability and security.

The portfolio will feature new radios that are interoperable with Siemens Mobility’s extensive installed base of Advanced Train Control System (ATCS) radios. Importantly, the new radios will be MC-IoT capable, ensuring the railroads are ready to embrace future advanced train control, signaling, crossing and monitoring applications. The new ATCS radios for both base station and wayside are expected to be in the market within the year and will play a key role in building up rail’s intelligent infrastructure of the future.

The North American private rail network is massive, consisting of 140,000 miles of track, 25,000 locomotives, 1.6 million railcars and 200,000 highway crossings. A significant portion of the communications infrastructure is more than 20 years old and requires an upgrade to support the technology required for the automated railroad of the future.

“These new ATCS radios will provide the Railroads with a seamless migration path to build up this intelligent infrastructure,” said Marc Buncher, CEO of Siemens Mobility for North America. “The full complement of radio products that we can offer, through our partnership with Ondas, will enable our customers to further leverage the extensive investments that they have already made in the RF spectrum and in their communications infrastructure.”

Using the frequency-agnostic, software-defined radio architecture from Ondas, these products will enable a substantial capacity increase utilizing the railroad’s existing wireless infrastructure and dedicated FCC-licensed radio frequencies, as well as the flexibility to adapt to (and take advantage of) future changes in RF spectrum availability. Siemens Mobility and Ondas will work closely with International standards organizations and North American Rail representatives to promote a robust, public open standard that will benefit railroads, suppliers and application providers.

“Siemens Mobility is an ideal partner to accelerate the adoption of our wireless technology in the North American Railroad market,” stated Eric Brock, CEO of Ondas Networks.