SK Telecom Applies Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing To Railway Network

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SK Telecom will install Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) equipment on railways in South Korea to boost the data transfer rate on trains from 10Gbps to 100Gbps, the telco has announced.

The company won the order from the Korea Rail Network Authority, a subsidiary agency supervising railways under the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, to install the equipment for train lines in the country's southern regions.

The deal is worth 6.8 billion won ($5.8 million) and the installation deadline will be the end of 2020. SK Telecom will use US vendor Ciena's fibre solutions for the installations.

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The DWDM network will connect LTE-R networks, train control systems, CCTVs, and ticketing systems, SK Telecom said.

This will boost the data transfer rate between them from the current 10Gbps to 100Gbps, and allow seamless communications between on-train staff and control even on express trains running at over 300 kilometres per hour, the telco said.

SK Telecom, together with Samsung Electronics, deployed their first LTE-R network on Busan Metro Line 1 back in 2017. LTE-R networks have since been widely deployed on South Korea's railways.

Samsung and Japanese telco KDDI has also tested 5G networks for consumers on trains in Tokyo.

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