100 times faster than WiBro and 30 times faster than LTE

Now, up to 550 people can watch videos at high speed even on a moving subway.

The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) announced on the 29th of last month that it had successfully demonstrated data transmission speeds of up to 1.25 Gbps using Mobile Hotspot Network (MHN) technology on Seoul Subway Line 8 in collaboration with the Seoul Metropolitan Transit Corporation.

This technology is about 100 times faster than the WiBro-based technology used for Wi-Fi and 30 times faster than the LTE-based technology.

Existing Wi-Fi used in subways has low connection capacity, making it difficult to use video streaming services. MHN-based ultra-high-speed Wi-Fi is expected to resolve this issue.

The research team explained that if data transmission is achieved using MHN technology, it is possible for 550 subway passengers to simultaneously stream videos (2Mbps). With the existing method, the viewing range was limited to around 20 people.

When the research team conducted an experiment comparing the maximum reception speeds per person using smartphones, the results showed that for WiBro-based and LTE-based networks, the maximum speed was 12 Mbps or less, whereas for MHN, the maximum speed was 260–360 Mbps depending on the smartphone model.

The research team connected a Wi-Fi router to the MHN transmitting and receiving terminal installed in the subway driver's room and measured the service quality by connecting to a smartphone.

ETRI successfully demonstrated data transmission speeds of up to 500 Mbps in a single-terminal environment inside a moving subway train on Line 8 last January using this technology. It stated that this demonstration marked the first time service performance was compared across three Wi-Fi methods with people on board in an actual subway.

Jeong Hyun-kyu, Head of the 5G Giga Service Research Division at ETRI, said, “MHN technology has a wide bandwidth in the 500MHz ultra-high frequency band. It enables ultra-high-speed service just like Wi-Fi used in ordinary homes or offices, even inside moving subways or KTX trains.”