Vice ICT Minister Cho Kyeong-sik (2nd from L) and other officials attend a test to check the performance of a 5G public Wi-Fi service capable of transmitting data at 20Gbps on a Subway Line 2 train in Seoul on Sept. 28, 2021. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Feb. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s ICT ministry said Wednesday it will start providing 5G-speed Wi-Fi services inside subway trains on major lines in Seoul by the end of this year in a move to improve network services.
The ICT ministry said it plans to make 5G network services on the 28-gigahertz (GHz) band available on subway lines 2, 5, 6, 7 and 8 in a move that is expected to dramatically improve Wi-Fi speed inside subway trains by tenfold from the current average of 71.05 megabits per second (mbps) to around 700 mbps.
The ministry plans to have the 5G equipment ready by April and to install it inside the subway trains in the second half of the year.
Last year, the ministry joined hands with the country’s three major carriers — SK Telecom Co., KT Corp. and LG Uplus Corp — to establish a backhaul network based on mmWave 5G for Wi-Fi on the Seoul subway system.
The ministry said it successfully tested the technology last month on Line 2 from Sinseoldong Station to Seongsu Station and is currently expanding it to the other lines.
South Korea aims for nationwide coverage of 5G networks by the end of this year after they first went live in April 2019.
The vast majority — 66 percent — of the country’s mobile users were still on 4G networks as of December last year, compared with 28.7 percent on 5G.
(Yonhap)
