Subway 5G
The three mobile carriers in South Korea have worked together to complete the construction of a mmWave wireless 5G network in the subway. Don’t get excited, we are not talking about the possibility of adding mmWave 5G to the 4/5 or the 1/2/3 in New York City, but a small segment of the Seoul, South Korea Subway line #2. The network will give users Wi-Fi service that is ~10 times faster than the current 4G network, which averages download speeds around 71Mbps, with expectations that the system can be further optimized to provide download speed up to 1 Gbps.
The system has 26 base stations installed next to the track bed, 10 receivers which are mounted on the trains, and 20 Wi-Fi 6E routers in the passenger cars. The receivers capture the signals from the base stations and convert it to Wi-Fi which is transmitted to the Wi-Fi routers in each passenger car via optical cable. The track 5G signal is not accessible to 5G smartphones but only to those on the Wi-Fi network.
What makes this a bit unusual is that there has been considerable controversy over the use of mmWave frequencies in South Korea, with the government in 2020 said to be downplaying mmWave in lieu of low and mid-band 5G, which has a slower speed but a longer transmit range and therefore a less expensive buildout. The subway system, which is scheduled to begin next month, has been spearheaded by the Ministry of Science who coordinated the necessary cooperation between the country’s three major carriers.
While the system in Seoul is a test bed, we would be happy to get a consistent 5G mobile signal for more than a few minutes anywhere in the US, and that would be at much slower sub6 frequency bands, but the bigger question would be do we really need mmWave 5G on the subway? Looking at the collection of subway denizens below (just the tip of the iceberg), the necessity to livestream such content to Instagram (FB) followers seems a bit less than necessary…
The system has 26 base stations installed next to the track bed, 10 receivers which are mounted on the trains, and 20 Wi-Fi 6E routers in the passenger cars. The receivers capture the signals from the base stations and convert it to Wi-Fi which is transmitted to the Wi-Fi routers in each passenger car via optical cable. The track 5G signal is not accessible to 5G smartphones but only to those on the Wi-Fi network.
What makes this a bit unusual is that there has been considerable controversy over the use of mmWave frequencies in South Korea, with the government in 2020 said to be downplaying mmWave in lieu of low and mid-band 5G, which has a slower speed but a longer transmit range and therefore a less expensive buildout. The subway system, which is scheduled to begin next month, has been spearheaded by the Ministry of Science who coordinated the necessary cooperation between the country’s three major carriers.
While the system in Seoul is a test bed, we would be happy to get a consistent 5G mobile signal for more than a few minutes anywhere in the US, and that would be at much slower sub6 frequency bands, but the bigger question would be do we really need mmWave 5G on the subway? Looking at the collection of subway denizens below (just the tip of the iceberg), the necessity to livestream such content to Instagram (FB) followers seems a bit less than necessary…
Scenes from the Subway - Source: BoredPanda.com
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