June 1, 2017–The FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology granted Amtrak a waiver today to allow it to deploy a wireless trackside network (TSN) within the Northeast Corridor “under the specifications that apply to fixed point-to-point operation in both the 5.15-5.25 GHz (U-NII-1) and 5.75-5.85 GHz (U-NII-3) bands.”

OET said in a letter in ET docket 16-415 that the waiver is conditioned on several provisions, including that “[t]he total number of stations, including both trackside and train-based stations, operating pursuant to this waiver must be fewer than 1,000”; “[s]tations operating under this waiver are only permitted to operate within the right-of-way along the Boston-to-Washington, D.C. segment of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor”; and “[c]ommunication is only permitted from trackside stations to train-based stations – no direct-to-consumer connections are permitted.”

Courtesy TRDaily