Siemens Mobility, Ondas Networks bring next-gen wireless to North American rail market

May 15, 2020
Ondas Networks’ Mission-Critical IoT radio technology will be featured in the new Siemens-branded portfolio of radio products.

Siemens Mobility and Ondas Network have entered an exclusive partnership to bring a Siemens-branded portfolio of Ondas’ wireless radio communication systems to the North American rail market.

Ondas’ Mission-Critical IoT (MC-IoT) architecture is designed to provide railroads with wireless networks that are built specifically for mission critical use and meet demands for low latency, high reliability, availability and security.

The portfolio will feature new radios that are interoperable with Siemens Mobility’s installed base of Advanced Train Control System (ATCS) radios. 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.

“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 capacity increase utilizing the railroad’s existing wireless infrastructure and dedicated FCC-licensed radio frequencies, as well as the flexibility to adapt to 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,” said Eric Brock, CEO of Ondas Networks. “Siemens Mobility is a world-renowned leader and innovator in transportation with the reach and support systems to truly drive our technology to wide scale acceptance. Our technology has enormous potential in the North American railroad market and we’re very excited about the future we see with this partnership.”