Nokia Telecommunications said it fought against strong competition to win the private radio contract for the London Underground Northern Line, which is valued at $15 million.
Nokia will supply and install its trunked Actionet system throughout the line.
“We are confident that this turnkey system will support all the functionality required by a modern metro system,” said Peter Kuhne, managing director of Nokia Telecommunications UK Ltd.
Finland-based Nokia was hired by GPT Strategic Communications Systems on behalf of GEC Alsthom NL Service Provision Ltd.
Motorola Inc.’s Land Mobile Products Sector in the United Kingdom said it didn’t compete for the contract. Competition may have come from Philips Telcom’s Private Mobile Radio division in Cambridge, England.
With the new system, staff on the trains will be able to communicate with operations staff as well as controllers. The new radio system will form part of the general upgrade of the line which is expected to improve train reliability and safety.
Strong links between cellular and the mobile radio handsets will be established through the system, and new advanced features for underground metro application will be introduced, Nokia said.
Nokia’s Actionet product supports voice and data using three different control channel strategies, dedicated, time-shared and nondedicated. The system can handle more than 100,000 subscribers, Nokia said. It will use the MPT 1327 standard.
Infrastructure for the Actionet system is comprised of one or more mobile exchanges, to which one or more base stations are connected. Base stations are available for both VHF and UHF bands. Channel spacing can be either 12.5 kilohertz, 20 kilohertz or 25 kilohertz.
