Railways: Mobile Broadband
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the opportunities presented by Great British Railways to improve access to rail‑side infrastructure for mobile connectivity, including by addressing historic barriers related to trackside deployment and in‑carriage signal penetration.
Answered by Keir Mather
The Department provided funding to Network Rail as part of its 'open for business' initiative:
- to look at the suitability of using Network Rail's existing trackside infrastructure (including operational GSM-R masts and overhead line stanchions) for use by mobile network operators or private 5G providers; and
- to publish guidelines for the telecommunication industry wishing to use such infrastructure. Under Great British Railways, the Department expects this to continue.
The Department has secured funding as part of the Spending Review to deploy low earth orbit satellite to improve on train Wi-Fi on our mainline trains, and we have also asked Network Rail to explore how passenger mobile connectivity can be improved through its upgrade from the existing system, GSM-R, to the Future Railway Mobile Communication System.
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