Deploying a private 5G network is a challenge – especially when the network has to cover an 85-square hectare (equal to about 210 football fields) indoor and outdoor industrial railway facility that includes 10 kilometers of tracks and four gigantic robot cranes used to move freight cars from one type of track gauge to another.
In this video, Stephen M Saunders MBE, founder of Silverlinings, tours the EWG Intermodal Terminal in Fényeslitke, Hungary, which worked with Huawei to build out a private 5G network powerful enough to help the company track and manage freight on what is called the modern-day Silk Road.
In addition to touring the facility, Saunders interviews János Tálosi, CEO for East-West Intermodal Logistics Plc., and Tamas Boday, director of integrated solutions at Huawei, to learn about the project and the challenges of installing the private 5G network, and the benefits it provides.
Watch the video below to learn more about the EWG Intermodal Terminal and how it’s using private 5G to transform its business.
Steve Saunders: This is Budapest, capital of Hungary, and one of the greatest cities in the heart of Europe. It's famous for its thermal springs, the St. Stephen's Basilica and its rich cultural heritage. But now, Hungary is about to be known for something else; leading the world in using the latest 5G cellular technology to make the rail industry safer and far more efficient.
I'm here to visit the EWG intermodal terminal in Eastern Hungary, which is 285 kilometers and a four-hour train ride from Budapest. Fortunately, Tamas Boday [director of integrated solutions] has agreed to ride with me. He works for Huawei, which provided the 5G network for the EWG site. Tamas, why did you use 5G technology for the installation rather than Wi-Fi?
Tamas Boday: Well, it was a no-brainer, to be honest. Wi-Fi is a great tool. Inside the office building, Wi-Fi is the best solution. It's more cost effective, all the devices are supporting it, however, outdoors we need to provide a solution which is fit to purpose. In this case, the requirements were very high uplink bandwidth, reliability, very low latency and guaranteed latency, especially in this huge area. Wi-Fi [is] best-effort compared to 5G, which is guaranteed service.
Saunders: Tamas, do you think the technology that you’ve deployed at EWG could also have applications in other industries?
Boday: Actually, some of the knowledge which we have applied here in the rail industry is coming from sea transportation. We have already done many projects like that. In many countries, including Hungary, we are reforming 3G, 4G frequencies, and moving everything to 5G because of higher reliability, better security standards than previous technologies, and much higher spectral and energy efficiency.
Saunders: Hungary has been a key staging post on the Silk Road for thousands of years. Today, most goods are carried from east to west by train, but there's an issue — literally a disconnect.
The railway tracks here in the east are a different width to the ones here in the west. And here at the EWG terminal, right in the epicenter of Europe, is where cargo is transferred from one gauge of railway to the next.
It looks like we've turned up at a really good time because today EWG is celebrating its first six months of safe, uninterrupted scheduled operation. In the old days, moving freight from one rail line to the next was an inefficient, expensive, and dangerous process. Railway cars had to be tracked manually and the containers removed by crane operators in cabs 30 meters off the ground.
What makes the new EWG terminal unique is that the entire site is connected over a [private] 5G cellular network that includes the cranes, which are remotely operated from here in the safety and comfort of this state-of-the-art control room.
One thing that you really notice about EWG is that the staff here is a lot more diverse than you'd usually expect operating heavy equipment at a railway terminal, and that's one of the benefits of using 5G to enable industrial applications. What matters now is not how many years of experience you have in operating trains or cranes, but IT skills.
The EWG terminal here is absolutely massive, and that's one reason why it opted to use 5G technology to provide the connectivity for the facility. Now, a lot of people think of 5G as purely a consumer technology, but its developers included a huge wealth of features for use in private 5G industrial applications, like the one here at EWG. What challenges did you have to overcome to build the facility here so quickly?
János Tálosi, [CEO, East-West Intermodal Logistics Plc.]: I had a vision to build the world’s most modern land terminal, but life overran things. We had the COVID epidemic and then a war just across the border but still we managed to build this terminal in just 14 months. [Translated from Hungarian.]
Saunders: Did you try out any other 5G solutions before you selected Huawei, and in what way was their solution superior?
Tálosi: We tried several possible solutions and in the end we chose Huawei. Their product was the only one that was capable of delivering the technical operations. [Translated from Hungarian.]
Saunders: Do you think this technology could be of use in any other industries?
Tálosi: I think that these 5G networks give the industry a very strong future. Risks are reduced. Work becomes more efficient and the flow of information within technologies becomes much faster. If a terminal like this can be built, there should be no problem [building] other projects. [Translated from Hungarian.]
Saunders: Tell us a little bit about the relationship between EWG and Huawei. It's a giant company and you are a big company, but not quite as big as they are.
Tálosi: I had doubts about how we would cooperate with such a dominant company, but I have had a very positive experience. Their technical standards are very high, and the process was all very smooth. [Translated from Hungarian.]
Saunders: The benefits of digitization at this facility have been phenomenal. EWG can now handle a million containers per year. That's twice the number of the facilities on the border of Belarus and Poland. It's one of the best examples I've seen of how next-generation technologies like 5G, cloud and AI are revolutionizing industries around the world.
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