WORLD
First LTE-railway network starts official service in South Korea
Baku, April 25, AZERTAC
Samsung Electronics' LTE-Railway (LTE-R) solution has launched its official service on the 41km-long Busan Metro line 1 in South Korea, according to Railway Technology.
The system's integration on the line represents the first usage of LTE-R technology during operation of a train / metro service, and will cover 40 stations in total.
Samsung collaborated with the Busan Transportation (BTS) and SK Telecom to replace the existing analogue wireless technology with the new LTE-R solution.
The new communication system has been undergoing testing since February for final safety checkup purposes, and an interoperability test has been conducted between the on-board equipment on the metro and the LTE-R mobile device installed on the railway / train.
The 4G-based LTE-R technology was developed as a modern mission-critical communication solution for railway operation and maintenance, and offers stable multimedia services.
It enables the use of multimedia-based group call / SMS services, and also allows rail operators to transmit real-time video of the station to the central control centre in case of accidents. The system also offers real-time group / individual communication between the train engineer and control centre.
The technology features a low latency rate of 10ms with QoS management support, and can also be implemented for mission-critical communication that requires high speed, consistency and security.
The South Korean Government noted that it plans to increase the distance covered by the LTE-R project to nearly 5,600km by 2025.