Samsung announced on Thursday that its LTE-Railway network (LTE-R) of wireless broadband Internet is now live on a high-speed train (KTX) in South Korea. The new Wonju-Gangneung line, which will help travelers get to places like Gangneung and PyeongChang, is 75 miles long and its trains travel at 155 miles per hour.
The upgrade, courtesy of a partnership between Samsung and telecom company KT, comes ahead of South Korea hosting the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang in February.
“We are delighted to work with Samsung to provide critical communications systems for this brand new high-speed train line,” said Yihan Kim, head of KT’s enterprise business unit, in a statement. “The new line puts Gangneung only two hours away from Seoul, and LTE-R will make the journey for PyeongChang visitors a much safer and reliable experience.”
LTE-R isn’t like the LTE your smartphone enjoys. It is technology specific to metros and trains and provides high speed wireless data communications not just in the train, but also between control centers and those working on the train—either via train-to-train or train-to-ground communication.
This is the first instance of deploying LTE-R on a high-speed train, though Samsung has also outfitted the Busan Metro with the high speed communication network.