Lee Jae-myung "Introducing 5G Public Wi-Fi on All Buses and Subways"

Public Wi-Fi Improvement Pledge Including Solutions for Wi-Fi Disconnection Issues

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Ju-yeon] Lee Jae-myung, the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party of Korea, announced on the 29th that he will introduce 5th generation mobile communication (5G)-based public Wi-Fi on public transportation nationwide.

On the same day, Lee posted on Facebook his 56th "So-hwak-haeng" (small but certain happiness) pledge titled "It works everywhere. 5G Wi-Fi on all buses and subways."

The Democratic Party's election campaign committee explained in a press release, "We will replace Wi-Fi on buses and subways nationwide with 5G super Wi-Fi," adding, "By 2023, we plan to install 5G public Wi-Fi on approximately 30,000 city buses nationwide, including village buses, wide-area buses, and intercity express buses."

The campaign committee emphasized, "Despite the high usage frequency of public Wi-Fi on public transportation such as buses and subways, the quality is significantly poor, causing inconvenience to the public," and stated, "We must improve the speed of public Wi-Fi to create a convenient data usage environment for the public and expand the people's communication sovereignty."

Currently, subway Wi-Fi speeds are only about 15% of the average speed of telecom companies, and the quality is significantly poor compared to the high usage frequency of public Wi-Fi, causing inconvenience to the public.

In addition, the Ministry of Science and ICT and telecom companies plan to expand the subway "5G backhaul" (a transmission network that connects the upper backbone network and the lower network around mobile communication base stations to improve Wi-Fi speed), which was piloted in some sections, to the entire metropolitan subway system including the Airport Railroad, and also improve data disconnection issues caused by Wi-Fi interference.

The campaign committee stated, "We will upgrade bus and subway Wi-Fi to '5G super Wi-Fi' that works flawlessly, supporting convenient data use for the public and creating an era where anyone can freely enjoy videos, dramas, SNS, and more even on public transportation."