WA Radio Scanner Users' Group

$200m Huawei contract to upgrade Perth train radios scrapped after US trade restrictions

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-27/p ... d/12098500

Have the PTA found an acceptable alternative yet?

Otherwise they may have to roll out analog repeaters for the tunnel networks along the airport link, and for the Forrestfield area in general.

roland985 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 16, 2021 12:22 pm Have the PTA found an acceptable alternative yet?

Otherwise they may have to roll out analog repeaters for the tunnel networks along the airport link, and for the Forrestfield area in general.

I worked on this project, so I can't say much due to NDAs, but yes they have found an alternative using the same LTE technology but a different, less spicy technology provider. There is a rumour that I couldn't substantiate that the new technology provider is from Finland.

Wonder why they're using LTE instead of the upcoming ESRN, just seems very odd.

JhG123 wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 6:49 pm Wonder why they're using LTE instead of the upcoming ESRN, just seems very odd.

LTE has plenty of bandwidth and they wanted to be able to migrate other things like CCTV, DAVS, LLPA, SCADA etc. onto that network. Also, the original plan was for this to have been delivered already, they're massively behind schedule now. Staying with LTE means they can re-use a big chunk of the design effort, along with all the original justifications that sent them down that path initially.

Yep, I think the killer feature is for things greater than voice, like live video from train riders (etc)

vk6hgr wrote: ↑Thu Sep 30, 2021 4:51 pm Yep, I think the killer feature is for things greater than voice, like live video from train riders (etc)

Yeah. PTT voice was only ever going to be the first function to roll out. LTE is also a robust, well supported technology so you can buy COTs products in the future to maintain it and not be tied to one manufacturer, if the handhelds ever go out of range of PTAs network it would fall back to using a regular carrier like Telstra or Optus. Using LTE comes with a lot of advantages.