VIAVI Solutions
Introducing VIAVI Railway & MCx – For Proactive Critical Communication Operators
This article first appeared in the Railway-News magazine, Issue 1 2023.
Max Becutti and Pascal Bertrand, are responsible for Railway and MCx Service Assurance Product Line Management at VIAVI Solutions.
In this article, they explain how we are enabling customers to test, measure and monitor telecom networks and mission critical systems performance with confidence.
The acquisition by VIAVI Solutions in May 2022, brought together the market-leading solutions from both Comtest Wireless and the previously acquired Expandium (in August 2020).
Combining both companies into a single portfolio has created the industry’s largest supplier of railway telecoms and signalling test, measurement and monitoring solutions.
This provides valuable benefits to customers, enabling them to gain even greater value from the individual solutions and the synergies derived from the merger. For example, the new VIAVI Railway and MCx division has allowed the combined team to capitalise on their shared expertise and expand into aligned vertical markets, which also depend on mission-critical systems and operational cyber security.
Max Becutti, Product Line Manager for Railway explains more:
“Combining the Expandium QATS and Comtest NetProbe products and expertise into a single organisation has given us a powerful proposition and a good base for future product evolution, using a ‘best of breed’ approach. This is a very exciting time for the railway. The desire to improve train performance will be achieved by tackling three fundamental problems: providing greater capacity, improving service reliability and reducing signalling system renewal costs, something that is a challenge worldwide.
As a result, the evolution from GSM-R to Future Railway Mobile Communication System (FRMCS) is underway; the timetable has been defined by the UIC and national deployments could start as early as 2026.
Many customers are already actively planning to use 4G and 5G solutions for railway infrastructure communications. In fact, work on implementation has already begun in several markets and we are proud to be supporting these projects.”
