The speed of the free Wi-Fi service provided on city buses nationwide will increase by an average of four times.

An event commemorating the transition of public Wi-Fi on city buses nationwide from LTE to 5G was held on the 5th at the National Palace Museum, with the participation of the Ministry of Science and ICT, related agencies, and the industry. SKT announced that it had completed the installation of Wi-Fi equipment on city buses in approximately 16 local governments across the country in early December, having undertaken the second and third phases of the project.

The bus public Wi-Fi 5G transition project is a project to transition the LTE backhaul-based Wi-Fi service currently provided on city buses nationwide to 5G, and has been underway since May 2019.

The project was conducted on a total of 29,100 city buses across 16 local governments nationwide, as determined by a demand survey of local governments by the NIA. SKT replaced 24,900 of these, or 85.6%, with 5G backhaul-based Wi-Fi 6 or 6E (Echo) access points (APs) starting in November 2020.

With this 5G transition, bus Wi-Fi is now able to provide services at speeds of 300–400 Mbps, which is more than four times faster than the existing 4th generation LTE backhaul. According to the ITU, the minimum download speed of 5G reaches 100 Mbps, and the maximum transmission speed reaches 20 Gbps.

On this day, the Ministry of Science and ICT announced that it would pursue the following as policy directions for public Wi-Fi: promoting the application of new technologies, improving the method of opening commercial Wi-Fi, redeploying public Wi-Fi, and strengthening the system for responding to failures in operation and management.

First, outdated WiFi 4 and 5-based WiFi networks that have exceeded their lifespan (7 years) (14,000 units installed between 2015 and 2017) will be replaced with WiFi 7 networks in 2025, but WiFi networks that cause inconvenience due to failures will be replaced with WiFi 7 networks on a trial basis starting in 2024 to improve quality.

SKT plans to proceed with the development of 5G Wi-Fi access points (APs) and pilot services utilizing the technology in collaboration with NIA after the global standard for WiFi 7 is finalized in 2024. WiFi 7 is theoretically expected to provide speeds up to 46Gbps, which is approximately 2.4 times faster than WiFi 6, which has speeds ranging from 600Mbps to 9.6Gbps.

In addition, the Ministry of Science and ICT announced that it will make efforts to enable faster and more comfortable use of public Wi-Fi by actively introducing high-bandwidth networks, such as increasing the speed of the wired network that forms the basis of Wi-Fi to 10Gbps.

In addition, Wi-Fi access points (APs) with low operational efficiency due to a lack of users resulting from facility closures will be relocated to visitor areas such as libraries and traditional markets in consultation with local governments that share operating costs. To minimize user inconvenience in the event of public Wi-Fi outages, a system will be established to reduce the response time from the current 48 hours to within 24 hours. It makes it possible to file civil complaints, which were previously only possible by phone, through the 'Public Wi-Fi App' as well.

In his opening remarks, Minister Lee Jong-ho of the Ministry of Science and ICT stated, “Public Wi-Fi has provided substantial assistance in alleviating the burden of communication costs by allowing citizens to use data for free, and we are taking every precaution regarding security so that they can use the service with peace of mind.” He added, “Going forward, we will actively support the pilot application of new technologies such as WiFi 7 and the expansion of backhaul based on 10G wired networks.” He further stated, “In particular, we will make every effort to ensure that citizens receive stable public Wi-Fi services by strengthening management regarding public Wi-Fi operations and response to failures.”