Demonstration of 40 Gbit/s conducting media data capacity on international rolling stock

Abstract

From the clients' side, future generations of railway passenger services should deliver on-board data rate that exceed customer expectations. From the infrastructure perspective safety, security, maintenance and crime prevention must be enhanced in line with reduced journey times even on international services. At present, the gross information capacity of intra-train guided media at 100s Mbit/s is already inadequate ($< \mathbf{200}$ Kbit/s per user) even as the roll-out of 5G technologies continues apace. This paper presents a new approach to providing higher data rates ($\approx \mathbf{100}$ Mbit/s per user) with rail-approved assemblies of media, such as twisted-pair copper cables and enhanced connectors. We present experimental throughput results on realworld railway rolling stock showing that standard Cat 5e and higher specification twisted-pair copper cable assemblies offer 40 Gbit/s data capacity between present-day train carriages.