Sophia Antipolis, France, 24 November 2025
ETSI is pleased to publish the Report of the interoperability event on the Future Railway Mobile Communication System (FRMCS), held from 27 to 31 October 2025.
Organised by ETSI with the support of the European Union, EFTA, TCCA-Critical Communications and UIC - International union of railways, these Plugtests™ play a key role in accelerating the global adoption of future railway communications. They enable stakeholders across the value chain to test their solutions against each other, ensuring interoperability when deploying FRMCS over 5G networks and guaranteeing interworking with the legacy GSM-R system.
The event brought together more than 180 delegates from vendors and observers, including over 100 onsite participants from 20 countries, complemented by remote attendees. With 96 testing sessions, the ETSI Plugtests™ achieved 95.5 % interoperability success rate across tested configurations. The observer programme featured presentations, roundtable discussions, and demonstrations from railway operators, regulators, and public safety agencies. Insights from these events are shared with 3GPP and ETSI technical groups to provide feedback and help improve standards.
Testing covered Mission Critical Services (MCX) over 5G networks for railway and public safety applications in line with 3GPP Rel-18 as well as railway-oriented features such as Adhoc Group Call, IP connectivity, interconnection and migration scenarios.
As with previous interoperability events, the feedback will help fine-tune and update ETSI TS 103 564.
By rigorously testing diverse implementations aligned with 3GPP, ETSI and IETF standards, these Plugtests™ contribute to the harmonisation of mission-critical communication services, essential for safe, reliable and efficient railway operations worldwide.
The next MCX Plugtests™ is planned for June 2026, and the next FRMCS Plugtests™ is scheduled for November 2026.