Secure onboard passenger Wi-Fi for the New Metro Lines of Greater Paris
Teldat equips the new automated metro lines of the Grand Paris Express with onboard 5G firewalls and Wi-Fi 6 / Wi-Fi 7 access points, complemented by Teldat CNM Mobility for single pane of glass management and be.Safe Essential cybersecurity, delivering reliable high-speed internet for passengers across the network.
Client Summary
Société des Grand Projets (formerly Société du Grand Paris) (SGP) is the public authority responsible for delivering the Grand Paris Express, the largest transport infrastructure project in Europe.
It is building four new fully automated metro lines – 15, 16, 17 and 18 – that extend and modernize the Paris network with hundreds of kilometres of new track and dozens of new stations serving the Greater Paris region and its more than 12 million inhabitants, connecting the suburbs directly to one another and to major hubs such as Charles-de-Gaulle Airport.
Hub One, the digital technology operator, delivers the onboard passenger Wi-Fi service across the new fleet.
Summary
Challenge
- Provide reliable, secure and high-speed passenger Wi-Fi across four new automated metro lines in Greater Paris.
- The passenger Wi-Fi network and protects users from malware and undesired online content.
- Deliver seamless onboard 5G connectivity to trains moving at high speed through tunnels and stations.
- Integrate onboard services such as ticketing, CCTV, infotainment and content servers on one platform.
Solution
- be.Safe Essential cybersecurity protecting passenger Wi-Fi via content filtering and malware blocking.
- Two 5Ge-Rail cellular firewalls per train delivering 5G/LTE connectivity to the network and internet.
- APR2044ax Wi-Fi 6 access points in every coach, upgradable to APR70444be Wi-Fi 7.
- Teldat CNM Mobility for centralized management, hosted in a Virtual Appliance.
Results
- Centralized cloud management and monitoring of the entire onboard fleet from Hub One’s data center.
- Reliable and secure high-speed onboard internet that significantly improves passengers travel experience.
- Licenses and equipment for up to 176 trains and 852 coaches across metro lines 15, 16, 17 and 18.
- Project life-cycle commitment through 2037, with 8-year hardware warranty and multi-level support.
Why Teldat?
The Paris metro network chose Teldat for several reasons. As both the manufacturer of the onboard equipment and a technology advisor, Teldat offered direct communication with the source, versatile architectures and a solution combining 5G, Wi-Fi 6/7, centralized management and cybersecurity in a single platform.
Teldat also built a relationship of trust with the customer and its integration partner Hub One, backed by more than 15 years of experience in railway environments, deployments across five continents and proven references such as the Charles-de-Gaulle Airport Express. For acquisition, solution design, implementation, and operational support, Teldat works closely with its partner, QOS Telecom, a French-based provider of managed Wi-Fi, network connectivity, managed infrastructure solutions for enterprises, transportation and public-sector organizations across France.
Challenge
The Paris metro network needed to provide reliable, secure high-speed passenger Wi-Fi across the four new automated lines of the Grand Paris Express, operated for SGP, Société des Grand Projets (previous Société du Grand Paris). The goal was to guarantee a seamless secure connectivity experience for the millions of daily passengers travelling on the new fleet of trains, ahead of the major international events hosted in the French capital.
Delivering secure internet access onboard a metro is technically demanding. Trains move at high speed through tunnels and stations where cellular coverage is intermittent, so the solution would have to maintain stable, uninterrupted 5G connectivity and hand over smoothly between cells, without dropping the service that passengers increasingly rely on during their journey.
The project would have to cover both three-car trains on lines 16, 17 and 18 and six-car trains on line 15, integrated on a single management platform including the onboard services ecosystem. That is ticketing, CCTV, infotainment and content servers. Moreover, whilst separating passenger traffic from operational traffic and securing the network.
Finally, the customer needed a partner able to manage and monitor the entire fleet remotely and to commit to the full project life cycle, covering equipment delivery, technology upgrades, licensing and multi-level support across successive deployment phases of up to 176 trains.
Solution
The whole solution is managed from a single platform, the Teldat Cloud Net Manager (CNM) IoT Mobility, including extension for geolocation, coverage and signal-quality analytics, hosted in a Virtual Appliance in Hub One’s data center. Each train opens a secure IPSec tunnel to the control center, so its devices are operated as if locally connected, enabling zero-touch provisioning, firmware updates and real-time monitoring.
The communication solution is offered with be.Safe Essential adding a cybersecurity layer that protects the passenger Wi-Fi. Operated as an appliance in Hub One’s data center, it filters undesired content across 84 categories and blocks malware based on reputation IP and malicious URLs, with usage and productivity analytics.
Teldat delivered an end-to-end onboard communications platform for the new Grand Paris Express fleet, integrated by Hub One. Each train carries two 5Ge-Rail cellular firewalls, one at each end, providing 5G/LTE-A connectivity to the mobile network and the internet. Their dual-SIM design allows operator selection and backup, while Power over Ethernet and their compact size let them sit next to the rooftop antenna.
Every coach hosts an APR2044ax access point delivering Wi-Fi 6 in dual band (2.4 and 5 GHz) with MU-MIMO 4×4, connected to the firewalls through the onboard switch backbone. Multiple SSIDs keep passenger with per-user limits. In later phases the access points are upgraded to the APR7044be Wi-Fi 7 model, at the leading edge of wireless technology.
Results
Teldat’s solution successfully addressed the challenges faced by the Paris metro network:
- Centralized cloud management (CNM), monitoring and security of the entire onboard fleet.
- Reliable, secure high-speed onboard Wi-Fi that significantly improves the passenger travel experience.
- Licenses and equipment for up to 176 trains and 852 coaches across the four new automated metro lines.
- Full project life-cycle commitment through 2037, backed by an 8-year hardware warranty.
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