back to article Britain dusts off idle spectrum for rail and emergency comms

Britain's telecoms regulator wants to repurpose unused mobile spectrum for the upcoming Emergency Services Network (ESN) and to overhaul communications in the railway sector. Ofcom proposes to make the 1900 MHz band (covering 1900-1920 MHz) available for the UK's rail network and the emergency services, maximizing the use of …

  1. Mage Silver badge
    Coat

    Railways?

    They once had 872 & 921Mhz parts of GSM band, but it was never used.

    There are better ways of doing emergency networks and using spectrum.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Railways?

      There are better ways of doing emergency networks and using spectrum.

      Are you suggesting some sort of network for emergency services? An "Emergency Services Network", if you will.

      A splendid idea - what could possibly go wrong?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why do we need so many different private networks each using different parts of the spectrum?

    Wouldn't it be better to use the whole spectrum for one big IP based network and then setup VPNs within it?

    It seems like it would be so much simpler and more flexible.

    1. seven of five Silver badge
      1. seven of five Silver badge

        wat? Is spof also something rude? Or does single point of failure nowadays need further explanation?

        This would become more glorious then the privatization of the british rail.

    2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Why are all the railways sharing a single Spectrum?

      Couldn't they afford BBC micros when they were privatised?

      1. mhoulden

        You jest, but I do remember seeing the boot screen for a BBC Master on a platform information screen in the early 90s.

        1. Will Godfrey Silver badge
          Happy

          Nexus Alpha

          That was just the customer information system. Rather clever actually. These were dotted round the country and platform / remote screens updated via pager messages.

          They've come on a long way since those early days.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Nexus Alpha

            Very long way indeed. Worked at a unit in the northwest where they developed stuff for those. Most interesting

        2. Mint Sauce
          Pint

          Yep, I well remember the Acorn MOS screens showing when things occasionally went titsup.com

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        BBC micros lacked a FAT controller.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          The rail business can bring their own Sir Topham Hat, no need for a BBC one.

        2. Wally Dug
          Happy

          Fat Controller? Fat Agnus?

          Some models of the Amiga had Fat Agnus and that was a kind of controller. Does that count?

      3. MachDiamond Silver badge

        "Couldn't they afford BBC micros when they were privatised?"

        **Groan**

        Reg, we need an icon for "dad" jokes.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      because private business and money.

      To have one big network would require a national(ised?) company managing it and then selling it on to everyone else. It would have created true market capitalism in the mobile markets and we can't have that.

    4. Strangelove

      Why we need spectral segmentation -

      As a radio guy I have t say there are very good reasons we cannot have a one size suits all digital radio network.

      Firstly that the ranges needed and bandwidth needs of different systems are very different, so the power levels at the transmission end of things, (100km for air traffic control - 50W at VHF, WIFI within a house, 0.1 watt - mobile phones, less than km to the base station, less than 1 watt.

      Then there is the problem of co-siting a receiver trying to scrape up the odd picowattt from afar cannot do so near a transmitter on an adjacent frequency without filters - of the analogue kind, to give many tens of dB of rejection. In a small system you can time multiplex, but as the area gets bigger keeping it in sync gets harder and the time lost to change-over increases...

      Then there is physics - different frequencies need different size antennas, and that lends itself to different transmitters and receivers.

      Its all tricky and horses for courses. If you have mains supplies you could just use cables.

      M,

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      You're making quite a big category error. Frequency band sits at a different network layer to VPNs. I can completely avoid having to find solutions to the security, congestion and coverage issues raised by using a shared network by simply having my own spectrum. Why abandon dedicated spectrum and move to a shared resource to make network engineering harder? Remember we're talking about critical national infrastructure here, getting it wrong makes bad things happen.

  3. ecofeco Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Good idea, ruined

    Spare spectrum for emergency comms use? Excellent utility.

    Making it digital just because? Shooting self in foot, not so brilliant.

    Not everything needs to be digital.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Good idea, ruined

      >Making it digital just because

      The country could just share one analog channel.... over

      1. ecofeco Silver badge

        Re: Good idea, ruined

        ????

        (required extra digits to post)

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Good idea, ruined

        Oi You're British! Analogue

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: Good idea, ruined

          In these straightened times we can no longer afford extra superfluous vowels added to make Greek words sound French

          1. Bilby

            Re: Good idea, ruined

            "In these straightened times we can no longer afford extra superfluous vowels added to make Greek words sound French"

            * straitened

            1. Alan Brown Silver badge
              Coat

              Re: Good idea, ruined

              "* straitened"

              See icon. It's the one with 4 foot wraparound sleeves

    2. 45RPM Silver badge

      Re: Good idea, ruined

      I think I partially see your point - keep it simple, which should (in theory) make it more robust. But by that argument we'd use morse code on a telegraph, or semaphore flags, because they're even simpler and therefore theoretically more robust solutions. But…

      Digital comms aren't exactly new at this point - they are robust, and easily replaceable. And they have a significant advantage in bandwidth - so that spectrum can be shared with more users, rather than only being available to a lucky few.

      1. ecofeco Silver badge
        Facepalm

        Re: Good idea, ruined

        Yes, yes and no.

        Reliable? Robust? Then why-ever would El Reg exist?

        Do you NOT ever read the articles how the simplest things are always borked because of over-complicated, useless, money grabs? Or just how vulnerable digital everything is? Like ever? You and the other sweet summer child downvotes.

        Robust? Reliable? Easily replaceable? Don't blow smoke up my 30 years in the business, ass.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Good idea, ruined

          They’ve not been 30 successful years, have they?

          Tell the people who have been running the uk PSTN and mobile networks digitally since 1990 (I still have a paperweight on my desk celebrating the closure of the last analogue trunk exchange) that they aren’t reliable or resilient. Network uptime, 35 years and counting.

      2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Good idea, ruined

        >we'd use morse code on a telegraph, or semaphore flags, because they're even simpler and therefore theoretically more robust solutions. But…

        Network South East calls for aid - light the beacons

        1. ecofeco Silver badge

          Re: Good idea, ruined

          Why not use the clackers?

          1. NXM

            Re: Good idea, ruined

            What, those plastic balls on strings that kids like me used to injure themselves with in the 70s?

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Good idea, ruined

          British Railways have used Semaphore signals for years, and still do in places, both upper and lower quadrant

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_semaphore_signal

        3. Barrie Shepherd

          Re: Good idea, ruined

          Railways were the first users of telegraph, and for that matter had teleprinter networks before Telex. Apart from 'Bell codes' on lightly used lines they have moved on.

      3. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge
        Coat

        Re: Good idea, ruined

        As far as robustness and bandwidth saving goes there's not a huge difference between digital comms using 1s and 0s, and Morse code...

    3. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

      Re: Good idea, ruined

      Of course... why not go the whole hog and get rid of tuners altogether: just use spark gaps to communicate in morse. Not everything needs to be efficient.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Good idea, ruined

        You could take advantage of the high speed rail network to move messages about train movements by mail. You could even sort the mail on the train

    4. Terry Barnes

      Re: Good idea, ruined

      How do you propose that images, location data, text information, video and voice all be sent in an entirely analogue domain? How would you protect and encrypt that information in an entirely analogue domain? How much will you pay for devices to be developed and built that can do all this in an entirely analogue fashion?

      Think better.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    yet more annoying American spelling

    Ofcom's British. It issues licences, not licenses.

  5. MachDiamond Silver badge

    The rail needs to be able to eliminate signal cabling if they can't run it underground in ways that thieves won't be able to get at it. I always fume when morning trains are sat at stations due to cable theft overnight. That has to be an issue for companies that want employees to sit in the company office to do work once again that the employees had been doing at home with no need to add a train into the equation.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Does Ethernet over Powerline work on 25KV overhead line equipment?

      Generally 25,000v is a strong disincentive to stealing the wire, at least for re-offenders

      1. MachDiamond Silver badge

        "Generally 25,000v is a strong disincentive to stealing the wire, at least for re-offenders"

        The ones going after live 25kv lines get Darwined out. The problem is the signalling wires that are sometimes laid across the ground or people break into the wiring huts and just whack off what they can find inside. If there are no signals, the trains aren't safe to dispatch, points can't be changed, etc.

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Yes so the point is that you get rid of all the signal wires and run the signal on top of the 25KV AC

    2. Ian Johnston Silver badge

      Many - twenty? - years ago I went to a honours year dissertation presentation by a student who work for Railtrack. He had developed a GSM fallback which would allow signals to continue operating if cables failed or were stolen. As I recall he had actually been able to test it on a suburban line in Glasgow.

  6. Conundrum1885

    Problem

    A lot of GPUs have clocks which go this high.

    Now it isn't usually a problem but at least with my old card(s) it was possible for them to get affected by mobile phones.

    Put the phone near the open case and ring it or even receive a text and the GPU would crash after about a minute.

    With sensible case design it isn't an issue though did about someone's AntMiner jamming the phone network.

    Are we going to need a special 'Update; that stops the card using forbidden frequencies?

    1. Locomotion69 Bronze badge

      Re: Problem

      This is interference, and that is not so uncommon as you would believe. Almost all higher-frequency electronic equipment emits and is receptible to some electromagnetic radiation.

      EMC conformity can be a pain...

      In practice, it makes sense not to put different electronic (transmission) equipment close to eachother, especially when you are not providing decent shielding, hence the "open case".

  7. tip pc Silver badge

    Regulator knows best?

    The agency reveals that BT/EE had originally planned to provide ESN gateways using 1899.9-1909.9 MHz spectrum. However, Ofcom decided this was not optimal because the frequencies had already been harmonized across Europe for FRMCS.

    whilst it makes sense to align with others, what if they got FRMCS wrong in Europe?

    being able to do things differently is often a strength

    1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      Re: Regulator knows best?

      Not if you want trains to run across borders. Rail gauge breaks are already a problem, and IIRC Eurostar trains al have two different firefighting water connectors because British and French fire hoses have different designs. Let's not add to communication problems just because we think our system is "better".

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Regulator knows best?

        Is that why the driver sits in the middle of the cab - so they can drive on either side of the rails ?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Regulator knows best?

          French mainline trains run on the left, just like British ones.

          1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

            Re: Regulator knows best?

            Jolly sensible of them. Presumably to avoid a complicated junction in the middle of the channel tunnel

    2. Locomotion69 Bronze badge

      Re: Regulator knows best?

      Apart from having FRMCS right or wrong, this is about the assignment of the frequency bands over different applications.

      If you want trains crossing borders, they have to comply to the basic parameters - like using the frequency bands for the correct reasons and under correct conditions.

      The UK has cross-border rail connections to the EU: the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, and not to forget Newry - Dundalk.

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