Study on feasibility of SATCOM for railway communication

Final Report
Broadband is used as a Boolean parameter that indicates whether value-added services are
included in the model. This parameter will be assessed as a secondary baseline, as it affects
the model significantly, even modifying the pool of possible candidates.
Re-use factor parameter describes the infrastructure re-utilisation for terrestrial
implementation.
Voice parameter is used as a Boolean that indicates whether voice is a strict requirement for
the service provision.
Terminal prices play an important role when defining the costs.
Communication tariffs gain relevance when providing broadband services.
Value-added tariffs or services usage size the income from value-added services and
therefore determine its feasibility. Both multiply each other, and percentage changes have the
same effect on the NPV. This parameter is only available for the broadband baseline.
There are other relevant parameters that may impact significantly on the overall result. Nevertheless,
they have been discarded, as their value is either confidently known, or they are related to the
parameters analysed, e.g. the base station unitary price, apart from being available from the
benchmark, is somehow related with the re-use factor as both are multiplied in the final formula.
9.3.4.2 Narrowband solutions analysis
Here the results of the sensitivity analysis are presented for each technology considering only
narrowband services.
Sensitivity Ranking
Voice as a Requirement
Base Stations Re-use Factor
Terminal Prices
Communication Tariffs
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600
Influence in NPV 2040 (M€)
Figure 85: Narrowband sensitivity parameters ranking
The sensitivity ranking has been built not according to the maximum influence on the results, but
rather the most relevant. An illustrative example of the rationale is presented below.
TETRA presents much higher sensitivity than LTE regarding the re-use factor parameter. However,
considering the overall results, LTE shows a better overall business case than TETRA, and therefore it
appears as a much more relevant solution than TETRA.
The objective of the sensitivity ranking is to state which parameters have more influence in the most
relevant solutions. Therefore, the parameters have been ranked keeping a balance of their influence
and the solution affected. Thus, this ranking represents the parameters that have most influence on
the most plausible future scenarios.
Doc.Nº: SRAIL-FNR-010-IND
Edit./Rev.: 1/1
Date: 16/02/2017
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