Abstract: The invention relates to a cellular broadband wireless access network for a railway/train comprising a plurality of access points (AP1?, . . . , AP5?) along the railway defining respective cells (CO1, . . . , CO5) of the wireless communications network, where the access points (AP1?, . . . , AP5?) are connected to at least one network gateway (GW) via an aggregation network, and where an access point (AP1?, . . .

Abstract: A digital switching network is disclosed in which paths can be preset from any inlet to any outlet either for circuit-switched connections or for packet-switched messages (packets), as required. At any point in time, the paths preset for the packet-switched messages form a network whose nodes lie in the switching facilities of the switching network. The switching facilities contain the functional units required to switch each data packet on the path preset for it. This makes it possible to dynamically divide a single switching network into a circuit-switching network and a packet-switching network as required.