Icomera, which already provides Wi-Fi to Thalys’ high-speed train passengers, has been selected by French rail operator SNCF to provide high-performance Passenger Wi-Fi on board its Intercités train fleets. Icomera won the contract after numerous successful trials and having offered daily assistance and expertise to SNCF. The Wi-Fi service will be available to passengers free of charge, making every journey across France productive, entertaining, and comfortable, even over long journeys, such as on ‘Intercités de Nuit’ overnight sleeper trains.
High-Speed Connectivity for 203 Intercités Trains and Night Train Coaches
The extensive deployment across 203 Intercités train cars began in January 2020, with upgrades being installed in a phased approach over three years, and project management, maintenance, and support being overseen locally by Icomera. Each train car will utilise one of Icomera’s powerful X3 (Rail) mobile Internet connectivity and applications gateways to ensure maximum reliability, bandwidth, and connected capacity for the onboard Internet. This distributed solution uses the X3 (Rail), ideally suited for use in reconfigurable train consists, providing high-quality Passenger Wi-Fi without the need to install more complex onboard network infrastructure.
Integrating Urban Transport Systems: A Major Expertise of ENGIE Solutions
To deliver this deployment for SNCF, Icomera will combine its technology with the expertise of ENGIE Solutions, which specialises in the integration of urban transport systems. ENGIE Solutions will assist with the deployment and provide cabling for Icomera to install across all train cars. ENGIE Solutions was the natural choice to assist with the integration of Icomera’s technology, due to its prior experience working on SNCF’s high-speed TGV fleets. This investment is financed by the French State, the organising authority for Intercités trains.
Renewed Trust
By 2016, Icomera had already deployed a high-speed Wi-Fi solution on the high-speed trains operated by Thalys, a subsidiary of SNCF. This partnership, which involved 26 8-car trains, was renewed in June 2020.
Gauthier Verrier, Head of Customer Service, SNCF Intercités Trains, said: “We look forward to working with Icomera and ENGIE Solutions to provide reliable onboard Wi-Fi for our Intercités passengers, as part of our ongoing initiative to deliver the best possible journey experience. Icomera’s onboard Wi-Fi will allow passengers to comfortably enjoy their adventures throughout France and beyond, as they surf the web, browse social media, and share their tours of the country with their friends and family.”
Emilie Raspaud, Icomera’s Director of EMEA Sales Enablement, said: “Icomera is incredibly pleased to bring industry-leading Wi-Fi to SNCF Intercités trains. This ‘as-a-service’ wireless connectivity solution is increasingly popular within the transport sector, as it significantly improves the customer experience.”
According to Wilfrid Petrie, Executive Vice President of ENGIE in charge of ENGIE Solutions, “This project perfectly illustrates our strategic focus: reinventing living and working environments while accelerating the transition to a carbon-neutral economy. Indeed, to participate in the improvement of the quality of the railway network also means working for more sustainable mobility. This makes it possible to offer an attractive and efficient alternative to road transport, both for passengers and for goods. This is one of the priorities of the French recovery plan, which has provided €5 billion for the development and modernisation of the rail network under the ‘green infrastructures and mobilities’ component. To do this, we mobilize all our expertise, which goes far beyond connectivity: low-voltage electrical distribution, traction energy, signalling, or passenger information, and operating assistance systems.”
About Icomera
Icomera is the world’s leading provider of wireless Internet connectivity for public transport and is committed to promoting green mobility. Serving millions of Wi-Fi users worldwide, our award-winning technology makes public transport a better, safer, more attractive option for passengers, supporting our mission to help contribute to a reduction in carbon emissions of 3.5 million metric tons by 2022. A wholly-owned subsidiary of ENGIE Solutions, Icomera is headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, with main offices in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, the United States, and Canada.
Find out more at icomera.com
About ENGIE Solutions
ENGIE Solutions supports towns, industries, and companies in the tertiary sector, providing them with solutions to the challenges posed by the energy transition in the form of turnkey and bespoke packages.
ENGIE Solutions’ experts apply all their expertise in pursuit of three aims: optimising the use of energy and resources, greening energies, and reinventing living and working environments.
ENGIE Solutions guarantees its clients a single point of contact and a combination of complementary offerings that go beyond energy. The company is committed to achieving results and its 50,000 employees which operate throughout France (900 sites) have expertise in an extremely diverse number of areas, ranging from the design and operation of infrastructure & services, to funding, installation, and maintenance.
ENGIE Solutions is part of the ENGIE Group, one of the world’s leading low-carbon energy and services groups whose purpose is to act to accelerate the transition towards a carbon-neutral world.
Turnover: €10 billion.
To find out more, visit https://www.engie-solutions.com/en
About SNCF
SNCF offers a full range of mobility solutions across six business lines, with a mission to bring the freedom of effortless mobility and a greener planet to all. SNCF employs 272,000 employees in 120 countries and its services carry 14 million passengers daily, throughout the world.
Having reached €33.3 billion in revenue and investing over €8.9 billion, SNCF is moving ever faster toward its goal of bringing people closer, by delivering easy, seamless passenger and freight transport—and by imagining and creating the mobility of tomorrow.
