1 Gbps Speed, 1 Km Range
The development of a technology to deliver connection speeds of up to 1 Gbps while moving, even on the subway, will be finalized by the end of this year. As a result, high-speed Internet connections will be possible even on the subway or Korea Train eXpress (KTX) soon.
The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) announced on July 1 that it successfully demonstrated tech for the Mobile Hotspot Network (MHN) system in a moving bus on June 30. The technique can transmit data 100 times faster than the existing WiBro-based mobile wireless method, with data transmission speeds of up to 10 Mbps.
In the demonstration, the research team at ETRI succeeded in transmitting 500 Mbps of data from a base station to a moving car that was over 1 km away. The newly-developed technique can provide gigabit-level speeds, even in a mobile environment, using millimeter waves. The technique is expected to be useful on crowded high-speed trains with speeds of more than 300 km/h.
The research institute plans to demonstrate the tech on a section of Seoul Subway Line 8 by the end of this year in order to make communications possible at the front and back of the train.
“We will demonstrate a tech capable of transmitting 1Gbps of data on the subway by the end of this year,” said Kim Il-kyu, a senior researcher of the Giga Communications Research Department at ETRI. He added, “I think that it will be possible to utilize the technique as a 5G tech, since we used uncultivated millimeter high frequency bands.”
The ETRI is also working to make the new technology as an international standard in an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standards group.
“The global market related to this technology is projected to grow to reach about US$88.6 billion during the 2017-2022 period,” explained Chung Hyun-kyu, head of the Communications & Internet Research Laboratory at ETRI.