The Indian Railways Project Management Unit (IRPMU), a state organisation with a remit to modernise and improve the national railway system in India, has chosen to introduce an IP telephony system covering vital operational and signalling communications across 450 km of the country’s rail network.
The planned new IP (internet protocol) telephony system will service lines between the major city of Kanpur and the towns of Ghaziabad and Mughalsarai. The first phase of the implementation will involve installing the necessary IP telephony equipment in each station and connecting operational hub on these lines.
In a statement commenting on the proposed implementation, IRPMU’s director of India operations, Ansaldo S. Lahiri, said that the new IP telephony system was chosen to ‘enhance railway communications between the hub and stations and increase the flow of critical information for the safety and security of passengers’.
IP telephony is increasingly being adopted by both public and commercial organisations to both augment and improve such key communications systems.
Whilst the benefits of certain aspects of IP telephony such as business VoIP (voice over internet protocol) have often been praised solely as a means of improving business phone systems and reducing monthly phone costs against the costs associated with traditional telephone company line connections, many organisations now increasingly also praise the efficiencies and manageability of business VoIP and IP telephony as much as – if not more than – they applaud the financial advantages of these technologies.
The IRPMU’s new Indian railways IP telephony project, many would argue, provides further evidence for the versatility of IP telephony in supporting a wide range of critical information and communications systems in the modern age; and why IP telephony is so often viewed as holding the key to the future enhancement and integration of all communications across and between business and public organisations.
