Trends
Switzerland’s railways shift to VoLTE as 3G shutdown looms
What happened: Switzerland’s national railway operator SBB, in collaboration with Ericsson, has deployed a landmark upgrade Switzerland’s national railway operator SBB, in collaboration with Ericsson, has deployed a landmark upgrade: interworking the legacy railway communication standard GSM-R with …
Headline
What happened: Switzerland’s national railway operator SBB, in collaboration with Ericsson, has deployed a landmark upgrade Switzerland’s national railway operator SBB, in collaboration with Ericsson, has deployed a landmark upgrade: interworking the legacy railway communication…
Context
Switzerland’s national railway operator SBB, in collaboration with Ericsson, has deployed a landmark upgrade: interworking the legacy railway communication standard GSM-R with a modern IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) platform offering Voice over LTE (VoLTE). Originally reliant on GSM-R for rail-specific communications and on Swisscom’s public 3G network for roaming when GSM-R coverage was lacking, SBB faced a hard deadline — Swisscom intends to fully shut down its 3G services by the end of 2025.
Evidence
Pending intelligence enrichment.
Analysis
To prevent any disruption, SBB chose not simply to expand the old GSM-R infrastructure but to build a converged IMS/VoLTE solution that preserves all safety-critical and rail-specific functions (such as emergency stop calls, EIRENE numbering adaptation, dispatcher communications and group calls) while migrating voice services to 4G. Deployment began in mid-2023, followed by internal tests, lab validation, and field tests with pilot trains starting in January 2025. By April 2025 the system was rolled out nationwide. As of December 2025, around 450 trains and 1,000 operational devices use VoLTE with zero downtime. Ericsson describes the integration as Europe’s first live example of GSM-R/IMS interworking at this scale and says it demonstrates the viability of a path to future railway communication systems. Also read: Smile Nigeria drives 4G LTE telecom growth Also read: Paratus debuts Namibia’s first private mobile network, redefining connectivity
Key Points
- The system now covers some 450 trains and about 1,000 devices on VoLTE, with “zero downtime” since going live.
- The upgrade preserves essential railway-specific communications (emergency/stopping calls, dispatching, numbering standards) while future-proofing for forthcoming 4G/5G-based communications standards such as FRMCS.
Actions
Pending intelligence enrichment.
