Airport IT week: Frequentis voice and recording systems take Incheon International Airport into the future

As part of Airport IT week looking ahead to Airport IT & Security that lands at London Heathrow on the 27th-28th September, IAR will be looking in detail at IT solutions and the airport industry throughout the week. 

Incheon International Airport was recently voted the best overall airport in the world by readers of Global Traveler. Within Phase 3 of a huge expansion project to raise annual passenger capacities to around 62 million by 2017, the Incheon International Airport Corporation (IIAC) has asked an international consortium to design a new airport-wide Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) network and to provide a state-of-the-art ATM infrastructure.

The new end-to-end IP voice communication and recording systems are part of a contract awarded to Frequentis, Telerad and GS Neotek by South Korea’s Incheon International Airport Corporation to build out ATM facilities within Incheon’s ambitious airport expansion programme.

Frequentis is supplying the airport’s new end-to-end IP voice communication system and backup (based on its market-leading VCS3020X system), along with integrated DIVOS 3 log recording systems. The technology will provide 88 main working positions and 55 emergency working positions with a fully-virtualised solution that delivers the functionality required for IP-based ATM of the future and the capacity needed to meet predicted traffic growth at Incheon.

Frequentis has also designed the airport-wide IP-based ATM-grade communication network within the airport construction project, which includes a second passenger terminal. The new network will connect IP radio sites supplied by consortium partner Telerad, with local partner GS Neotek undertaking system installation and integration. Frequentis and its partners won the contract in December 2013, the voice communication and recording systems passed Factory Acceptance Testing in September 2014 and are now in preliminary operation until the opening of the new Terminal.

Virtualisation and an end-to-end IP architecture will give IIAC the needed flexibility and reliability to adapt to changing ATM demands, free of the constraints of costly proprietary hardware.

“As one of the world’s best airports we have a duty to deliver the very best quality ATM services. The new ATM infrastructure will not only give us the state-of-the-art functionality we and our clients demand, but also provide the cost-effective flexibility needed to maintain this quality into the future”, says Jeon Byung-Sik, Team leader ATC Department at IIAC.

“Our long association with IIAC, which began in 1999, is a testament to the quality of the relationship between our two organisations. We are proud that Frequentis expertise and our end-to-end IP-based technology will continue to keep this world-class airport at the cutting edge of ATM”, adds Hannu Juurakko, Vice President ATM Civil at Frequentis.