Over the past number of years, UIC has led efforts to obtain dedicated railway frequencies for 5G in Europe within the framework of its global FRMCS programme.

These efforts have proven a success -the Electronic Communications Committee (ECC) approved the draft for the official recommendation on 17 November, allocating 5.6 MHz in the 900 MHz band and 10 MHz in the 1900 MHz band for European railways.

Furthermore, the ECC decision grants specific conditions of usage, protecting railway operations and providing relevant levels of emissions, thus reducing levels of infrastructure investment in comparison to conventional telecoms networks.

This is an excellent and valuable achievement for the entire railway community, and clearly demonstrates that unified objectives and actions in the railway sector can result in highly positive outcomes, even in the event of difficult and sometimes controversial situations, such as fierce competition between industries to obtain 5G frequencies for their own usage.

With this major step forward, and the official launch this month of the 5G Rail European project to build and test the first 5G prototypes adapted to rail operations, the FRMCS is well on its way and is becoming increasingly tangible, paving the way toward train digitalisation.