The government has approved the allocation of 5MHz spectrum in the 700MHz band to the Indian Railways. The move has been undertaken to improve public safety and security services at stations and in trains.
With this spectrum, Indian Railways has envisaged providing long term evolution (LTE) based mobile train radio communication on its route. The estimated investment in the project is over Rs 250 billion and it will be completed in the next five years.
Further, the government added that LTE will provide secure and reliable voice, video, and data communication services for safety and security services. In addition, it will be leveraged for modern signaling and train protection systems, and to ensure seamless communication between loco pilots and guards. This will allow the railways to go a step further and enable the internet of things (IoT)-based remote monitoring of coaches, wagons, and locos; and live video feed of CCTV cameras in the train coaches. The spectrum charges may be levied based on a formula basis as prescribed by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) for royalty charges and licence fee for captive use as recommended by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
Meanwhile, Indian Railways has also approved train collision avoidance system (TCAS), an indigenously developed automatic train protection (ATP) System, which will help in avoiding train collisions.
