December 19, 2007 -- Nokia Siemens Networks launched Hefei-Wuhan railway line project with the implementation of GSM-R technology on December 11. The 360 km Hefei-Wuhan Line has 14 stations, passes through Anhui and Hubei provinces. The project will be officially finished on December 31, 2008, according to Zhang.

"This line is located in the eastern section of Shanghai-Wuhan-Chengdu corridor and will encourage economic and cultural communication between midwestern China and the eastern coast," Tong Zhang, head of China Alternative Carriers, Nokia Siemens Networks Greater China region, told Emerging China.

China's railway construction is experiencing an unprecedented leap forward. Nokia Siemens Networks is working to provide high-quality GSM-R to support the railway's operations, according to Zhiqiang Zhang, head of the Greater China Region of Nokia Siemens Networks, in a statement.

The Hefei-Wuhan railway project marks another milestone for Nokia Siemens Networks in installing GSM-R after the recent contracts for Wuhan-Guangzhou Line, the longest high-speed railway in the world and for Hefei-Nanjing Line that is China's first passenger-dedicated line for commercial use, according to a statement.

"Nokia Siemens Networks has undertaken five of the total seven GSM-R passenger-dedicated line projects in China that are under construction or have been put into operation. The GSM-R core network provided by Nokia Siemens Networks will serve the main railway lines and bear over 50 percent of the wireless communication traffic on Chinese railways," said Nokia's Zhang.

The project will greatly promote development in the provinces covered by the railway line; especially. Especially for the certain passengers, like businessman or officials, who will benefit from more convenient and efficient services, according to Zhang.

"Nokia Siemens Networks inherited excellent end-to-end GSM-R solution from Siemens, which is a one-stop shop service, including communications, signal coverage, vehicle traction power supply,. We are able to meet the railway's network application requirements and the needs of the users," Zhang added.

In May 2006, the Ministry of Railways signed cooperation agreements to set up GSM-R core network projects with Siemens (China) Ltd. and Nortel Networks (China) Limited. These companies are expected to install the core GSM-R network from Beijing to Wuhan and complete with a coverage of about 30,000 kilometer of wireless network between the Beijing-Tianjin, Beijing-Guangzhou, Beijing-Shanghai lines by the end of 2010.

Ministry of Railways has already set the GSM-R network technology as the main direction for the railway telecommunication.