Radio System Solutions
Established in 1993, RST is a leading supplier in its field. Many RST systems have been successfully installed around the world - in countries like New Zealand, Spain, Korea, Cuba, the UK, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Belgium, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, the North, South, and Central Americas, Malaysia, Canada, Poland, and, of course, Australia, providing a continuous, reliable around-the-clock service to users world wide.
Our products and systems provide continuous coverage solutions to Trunked Radio Network Operators, Mobile Radio Sales and Service Companies, and Large Radio Fleet Operators.
Learn more about the areas where RST are really making a difference.
Network Operators
Customer: Vertel Telecoms, Australia (Large Nationwide MPT1327 Network Operator)
Background: Vertel is Australia’s largest MPT1327 Network operator, covering all States. A large number of Cell Extender® s form an integral part of the Network. Most Cell Extender® s are of the 1+2 type (1 Control Channel, 2 Traffic channels), but there also several 1+3 systems, where traffic demand is higher than the usual average.
Vertel choose Cell Extender® for a number of reasons. It provides economical solutions to specific coverage requirements, including coverage extension in areas where the available infrastructure has no further expansion capacity without major re-investments. Finally, as Cell Extender® is so easily installed, it is also used to provide fast track solutions to immediate expansion requirements.
A typical example is the Mt. View, NSW, Cell Extender® installation, briefly described below. This system was one of the first Vertel Cell Extenders, installed almost 10 years ago.
Product: Cell Extender®
Location: About 120 KM towards the North of Sydney, Australia, near Cessnock, a medium size country town, the Mt. View mountains rise some 200 meters above sea level.
Challenge: The population density in the area is low, but it carries a lot of business traffic passing through, on the way to or from the far more densely populated Sugarloaf and Mt. Arthur coverage areas. Add a highly undulating and mountainous terrain in between these two sites and you have the classic recipe for a coverage problem - mobiles "don’t know whether to lock onto one or the other site", and more often than not are “on the wrong site”.
Solution: Cell Extender® system, operating with 1 dedicated Control Channel, and 2 Traffic Channels, linked off the Sugarloaf site further South. To keep the coverage limited to those areas that required it, low cost, low power radio bases were used, which also helped to keep the total investment low. Installed nearly a decade ago, the Mt. View site has become a vital, high performance link in Vertel's radio network, carrying a large number of calls every day, around the clock.
Result: John Morehead, the Operations Manager of Vertel Telecom comments "Cell Extender® has given us an ideal tool to perfect our overall Network performance, effectively and reliably. It doesn’t need microwave links or land lines. The number of installed channels can be readily tailored to meet local area traffic demands. Even coverage into areas like underground car parks, or into large concrete structures, can be readily provided, by Cell Extender® , using only one single radio channel if necessary, if that’s all what the area needs. What’s more, a Cell Extender® system is, relatively speaking, quite mobile. It can be easily moved to new locations when the need for local coverage diminishes, or if and when a new Trunked Site has started to cover the area. All it needs is a simple re-programming procedure. Installation is equally simple, there are no complicated or critical adjustments, and it is a true "plug and play" system".
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Emergency Services / Government
Customer: NSW GRN Network (Trunked coverage extension into Sydney’s Harbour Tunnel, specifically required for Sydney’s Ambulance and Fire Brigade departments)
Product: Smartbridge® Talk Group Extender system
Location: Sydney Harbour tunnel, which is located in close vicinity of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It is about 3 Km’s long.
Challenge: The moment a vehicle enters the tunnel, GRN radio contact is lost. A vehicle travelling at a speed of (say) 60 km/hour, takes approximately 3 minutes to get through the tunnel, and a 3 minute loss of radio contact is a major problem to the NSW Ambulance and NSW Fire Brigade communication systems. Accidents in the Tunnel can (and do) happen, and obviously, continuous coverage throughout the Tunnel is essential for any Emergency vehicles attending to the Emergency situation.
Solution: A 3-channel Smartbridge® system was chosen to provide a perfect and cost effective answer to the coverage requirements. Two channels are allocated to the NSW Fire Brigade, the third channel links the NSW Ambulance Talk Group to any of its vehicles in the Tunnel. Physically, the system is distributed, that is, the GRN Radio/Smartbridge® combinations are installed in/on the North East Pylon of the Bridge to provide a link to the nearest GRN Site, connecting via 600 Ohm land line links to the 3 Conventional Repeaters located in the "Radio Re-Broadcast Room" inside the Tunnel. The Repeater RF signals are distributed throughout the Tunnel using "leaky feeder" radiating cable.
Result: Emergency vehicles entering the Tunnel switch their radio from their GRN Talk Group to the Conventional radio channel of the required Smartbridge® system, and continuous coverage is guaranteed. The coverage is practically speaking "seamless" too, as GRN radios have the ability to switch instantly from a "Talk Group" to a "conventional" channel, by a simple "flick of the switch". (In contrast, many, if not most MPT1327 radios require a full re-initialisation cycle before they will switch to or from a Conventional channel. This can take from several to many seconds, which in this particular case would be a very objectionable situation).
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Turning a Single Site MPT1327 system Into a Full Area Wide Network
Customer: General Communications, Newcastle, NSW, Australia
Product: Cell Extender®
Location: Newcastle and Hunter Valley, NSW, Australia
Challenge: Originally started with a humble Tait T1810 Single Site MPT1327 system, General Communications was soon looking for a cost effective solution to network coverage extension.
Solution: Cell Extender® proved to be the answer to Gencom’s requirements, also, as there is basically no limit to the number of Cell Extender® s that can operate from the one and the same Donor site. The Gencom network currently deploys some 8 Cell Extender® sites of the 1+2 type, which have expanded the original Single Site system into an Area Wide system, covering large areas, including a two-hop Cell Extender® link that stretches all the way into Sydney (a distance of well over 100 KM’s).
Result: Gencom's Managing Director, Martin Mcleod, says that the feedback from clients using the system has been very positive. The network was started up in the last quarter of 2001, and the last Cell Extender was installed only recently.
"Currently, the system services hundreds of users, and we are finding a real niche in the marketplace," Mr Mcleod said.
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Transport
Customer: Melbourne Metropolitan Railways
Product: “Off-Line” Cell Extender® sites
Location: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Challenge: Maintaining coverage along the entire distance of the railway lines.
Solution: Most Cell Extender® applications use off-air radio links to connect back to a Donor site but RST have also developed an “off-line” version, where Cell Extender® connects to the Donor site via fixed 4-wire E&M circuits. This is especially important for Railways communications, where the same calls are to be extended over large longitudinal distances. The Melbourne Metropolitan Railway network is a star-based network of railway lines, that all extend from the City of Melbourne to a number of outer suburbs. Off-line Cell Extender® s are placed at regular intervals along the railway, linked to the feeding site via fibre optic links or even land lines. Each Cell Extender® site mirrors the original Donor site, providing continuous MPT1327 coverage along the entire distance of the line.
A number of RST “off-line” Cell Extender® s are currently providing a highly reliable, 24/7 communications service to the Melbourne Metropolitan Railways radio network, and it is re-assuring for the Network operators to know that further extension is always readily possible with the well proven RST Cell Extender technology.
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Oil and Gas
Customer: An oil pipeline operations company, Sudan
Product: Cell Extender®
Location: Continental subtropical or desert climate / environment
Challenge: MPT1372-TAIT Trunk Radio Network which is used for the company pipeline operation (1600 Km length). The current coverage is a 30 Km radius around the 9 pipeline main sites. How to extend the coverage to cover the entire pipeline given that the demand on the extend coverage area is expected to be very low and the minimum distance between 2 sites is 80Km and the maximum distance is 250 Km?
Solution: Cell Extender® MPT1327 repeater system, configured for Single Channel Self Assign operation where the channel reverts to Traffic if there is traffic demand in its coverage area. The advantages: low cost, no multi channel combiners etc. (Of course, if the system has reverted to Traffic there is no MPT Service at that time but MPT Service will be straight back as soon as the Call has been cleared down by the User). Cell Extender® links to a Parent (Donor) site either via a full duplex, usually low Tx power, fixed radio RF link (we usually use 2 mobiles for that function), or via 4-wire E&M lines. When we use radio, the RF link is frequency agile so we need 1 radio only, even if the Donor site is 5 or 6 (or more channels). We "tune" the RF link radio to the Donor site Control Channel and if there is a Call, we switch the RF link radio to the appropriate Traffic channel at the Donor site. When we connect via fixed lines, we normally extend all Donor site channels to the Extender site, and Cell Extender® is then fitted with a switch to do the switching function normally done by the RF link radio.
Result: This system has yet to be installed. Upon completion more results will be posted.
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Mining
Customer: Rio Tinto (both their Australian and New Zealand operations)
Product: Smartbridge®
Location: Australia and New Zealand
Challenge: Rio Tinto currently operates some large EDACS and SmartZone networks. They decided recently to switch to the new TETRA standard. With fleets comprising thousands of mobile units, a solution was needed to provide continued communications during the TETRA installation and change over period.
Solution: A number of "plug and play" Smartbridge®® TETRA to EDACS Radio Network Interconnect systems were supplied, providing an easily installed and effective migration path, without any real interruptions to any of their fleet operations.
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Customer: Alcoa, Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Product: Cell Extender®
Location: Western Australian refineries
Challenge: Telstra, a large Australian Nation wide MPT1327 network operator, operates a UHF MPT1327 network in and around Perth, WA, supplied at the time by NOKIA, who no longer support the product. As a result, network expansion using traditional methods (building new sites) is no longer possible. Alcoa however, a major Network user, did need extended coverage due to their ever increasing expansion program.
Solution: Several 1+4 channel Cell Extender® have been installed over the past few years, to provide seamless and fully MPT1327 transparent coverage in the required coverage extension areas.
Result: Cell Extender® is providing a readily installed solution to a requirement that seemed at first thought impossible to fulfil.
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Custom
Customer: FonoMovil, Neuquen, Argentina (MPT1327 Network Operator)
Product: Smartbridge® SB200 MPT1327 to Conventional Interconnect system, later replaced by a Cell Extender® system.
Location: MPT1327 system, currently transmitting from a prime site in the City of Neuquen, and a Regional node further out from the city
Challenge: Following installation of the original MPT1327 network, a growing number of users from transport, electricity and oil companies through to Government and Police fleets put increasing pressure on the requirement for extended coverage and service. Operating on tight budgets; and a serious lack of coverage North of the city, and to a lesser extent, to the East, made the Operator choose a Smartbridge® system.
Solution: A Smartbridge® system was installed to provide a highly effective and reliable service on a constant 24 hour/seven days a week basis. Originally installed to service only a small number of professionally trained operators covering that area, a rapidly increasing traffic demand had started to outgrow Smartbridge®'s capacity, increasingly pressuring FonoMovil into finding a more comprehensive answer to the problem. Cell Extender® was then selected to provide a much more comprehensive and seamless coverage footprint.
Cell Extender® provides a highly cost effective, and readily installed solution, effectively offering all the features and advantages of a new Trunked Site, but at a fraction of the cost. Typical Cell Extender® installations operate with 3 to 4 radio channels, with 1 channel usually dedicated to Control Channel service, and the remaining 2 or 3 channels to Traffic Channel operation. Cell Extender® ’s leading edge technology however enables it to operate effectively even with 1 RF channel, using a unique "Self Assign" method to switch from Control Channel to Traffic Channel operation when a user wishes to make a call. So FonoMovil’s Trunking Manager, Mr. Diego Pianciola, decided to start with a single channel system, knowing that he can extend the system’s capacity at any time, by simply adding further channels in the future, as and when required.
Result: Solar panels are used to provide DC power (Cell Extender® ’s very low power consumption provides full compatibility with Solar powered sites). Installed in the Auca Mahuida ranges, 2200meters above sea level, Cell Extender® has given a very impressive boost to the main system’s coverage area.