The rapid development in the field of data communication is leading to new demands as regards the contacts used in automatic electric couplers. It is the data transfer rate that is increasingly becoming the decisive parameter in choosing the type of signal transmission that will dependably handle all the data needed by processes. The systems that have been in use in railway applications to date have needed a data transfer rate in the range of 0.5-1.5 Mbit/s. The requirements of realtime systems that already exist for railway applications - and certainly of those coming in future - include a data transfer rate of between 10 and 2000 Mbit/s. All the market has to offer for this area at present are expensive special-purpose contacts, which will only withstand the rough railway environment (if at all) if they are incorporated in complex tailor-made designs. At InnoTrans 2004, a company called era-contact GmbH presented a newly-developed product known as the eraTransceiver, which looks very promising for the future, since it fills the gap just described, era-contact GmbH, by the way, is a recently-created company, which is the successor to FABEG, a former AEG subsidiary, that had been established back in 1928. In 2000, the era group acquired the electric-coupler operation (FABEG) from the Schaltbau group.
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