FRMCS Remote Plugtests

ETSI, with the support of the European Commission (EC), the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), the Critical Communications Association (TCCA) and the Union Internatinale des Chemins de fer (UIC), organised the FRMCS (Future Railway Mobile Communication System) Plugtests event, which took place as a remote-only event from 14th to 18th June 2021.

GSM-R is the current standard for the railway telecommunication services developed and maintained by ETSI TC RT. With the increased need for more throughput, higher capacity and flexible deployment options, FRMCS is being developed based on 3GPP Mission Critical Services.

What were the objectives and scope of this FRMCS Plugtests event?

Interoperability and Mission Critical service harmonisation are critical challenges for the successful deployment and operation of Mobile Communication System for various sectors, including Railways. 

The concept of Mission Critical Services such as “Mission Critical Push To Talk" (MCPTT), “Mission Critical Data" (MCData) and “Mission Critical Video" (MCVideo) started with 3GPP Release-13 and is ongoing in current Releases. The Future Railway Mobile Communication System (FRMCS) is based on these Mission Critical Features.

The goal of the FRMCS Plugtests event was to validate the interoperability of a variety of implementations using different test scenarios based on the 3GPP Mission Critical Services framework with focus on the rail specific features, which is also used for Mobile Communication System for Railways. The FRMCS Plugtests event tested railways-oriented capabilities like Functional Aliases, Multi-talker, etc., defined in 3GPP Release-15 and Release-16. This FRMCS Plugtests event was part of the MCX Plugtests programme.

The tests were based on 3GPP, ETSI and IETF standards, and were designed for the following equipment:

• MCX Application Servers (MCPTT, MCDATA, MCVIDEO)
• MCX Clients (MCPTT, MCDATA, MCVIDEO)
• UEs and Cab Radios
• eMBMS Components
• IMS / SIP Cores
• Consoles and Control Rooms
• Railways Test Equipments

The purpose and scope of the FRMCS Plugtests event were to test independently and jointly all components of the Mobile communication System for Railways. Railway related test cases are available in ETSI TS 103 564. Additional railway-oriented test cases were developed for this Plugtests.

This FRMCS Plugtests event focused on Over-The-Top (OTT) tests via VPN connections from the vendor labs, following the approach used during the pre-test stages in previous MCX Plugtests events and in the MCX#5 Plugtests remote event.

Who could participate?

• Vendors which develop and produce above mentioned equipment.
• All vendors must actively participate in the testing
• Products have to support Rail features and test cases
• Observers, which can be government organisations, mobile network operators, railways operators, users, agencies or regulators. Observers are welcome to help define the scope (i.e. functionality to be tested) for this event and to evaluate the tests statistics in the TRT (Test Reporting Tool). First time Observers have to sign the Rules of Engagement and NDA of the MCX Plugtests Programme. 

What were the advantages of attending the FRMCS Plugtests event?

• To assess the level of interoperability of your implementations
• To validate your understanding of the standards
• To test with (many) other real implementations and demonstrate end-to-end interoperability
• To debug your implementation: early bug fixing, saving time and costs
• To promote the technology and the ecosystem.

The Plugtests Observer Program

The focus of the observer program was to examine the deployment and testing challenges of the Mobile Communication System for Railways.

The observer program provided a platform to the various stake holders in railways in order to discuss the progress of FRMCS. The observer program was held remotely.