Thales - Specialist Telecommunications Services to the UK Rail Industry

Thales is the leading provider of specialist telecommunications services to the UK rail industry - both mainline and Underground, including UK railway telecoms design, installation, maintenance and support.

With over 50 years' experience in the design, build and maintenance of telecoms networks and systems, the telecommunications arm of the company’s services division has a highly skilled, nationwide workforce of over 1,300 engineers and support staff. Thales' project management capability ranges from small work packages to large, complex communications projects with first-class support.

Meeting the requirements for rail telecommunications

Operating all over the UK infrastructure, Thales designs, project manages, installs, tests, commissions and maintains a wide range of communications equipment and systems meeting the exacting requirements of its customers.

These include national cable networks and highly resilient fibre optic networks - for example, SDH and ATM digital transmission and DWDM multi-channel technology. They also include the provision and system integration of voice and data communications, including integrated PABX concentrators, signal post telephones, level crossing telephones, public emergency telephones and dedicated data control systems for old and new generation signalling technologies, (TDM, SSI, CBI and SCADA).

Thales are currently maintaining the national radio network (NRN), further extending its life until the next generation technology becomes available. The development of a migration strategy for this is also underway. Providing and maintaining call routing apparatus, radio and VSAT systems, customer information systems, customer premises equipment and local and wide area networks are other areas in which Thales is delivering communications solutions to its customers.

Citylink and London Underground

Thales is a leading partner in the special-purpose company Citylink and is working in association with London Underground on the 'Connect' project to bring the London Underground telecoms network into the 21st century. This involves designing and installing the new integrated communication system, including the TETRA digital radio and the design, build, test and commission of a new SDH transmission network, using ATM to support voice, data and video services from wherever to wherever it is required.

Services in radio, immunisation and earthing, systems and datacoms

Thales shares its knowledge for the benefit of the industry through consultancy services in a number of areas. For radio this includes NRN, CSR, GSM-R, tunnel coverage systems, coverage planning and analysis, system assessment, system design reviews and operational subscriber management.

The services offered in immunisation and earthing cover testing, analysis and design review, whilst systems and datacoms include voice band, broadband and networking.

Network and asset management, voice, transmission and equipment type approval

Full network management is provided by Thales and asset management includes equipment inspections, asset condition assessments and asset recovery plans. Transmission and voice (concentrator, PABX, PETS) are also part of the consultancy services offered, along with equipment type approval.

Integration testing and fault investigation facilities

Thales also operates a number of in-house test-bed facilities that can be used to test hardware and software developments in existing equipment, prior to its use on operational equipment. Systems are available for integration testing with new products allowing validation of system compatibility prior to deployment. Reference systems are also used when conducting technical and fault investigations. Thales provides integration, development and investigation facilities for the following equipment:

• Concentrator systems - Siemens, Hicom, Nortel Meridian, Concept 32, Ericsson MD110
• PETS
• NRN
• Nokia 140Mb/s transmission equipment
• PABX - MD110, ISDX, OMNI, Mitel SX200

Delivering solutions all over the UK

All solutions are delivered by highly skilled engineers all over the country - backed by flexible, guaranteed service levels - managed and supported 24/7 by a centralised team in the task management centre. Thales' engineers are trained to RITC, safety-critical and Telecoms Vocational Standards and over 600 of them are also accredited to / licensed by the IRSE.