Samsung Electronics announced that it has signed an expansion contract with KT Corporation (KT) to provide public safety LTE (PS-LTE) network solutions for 10 major metropolitan regions in South Korea, including Seoul, by 2020.
The two companies also will be delivering what they’re calling the world’s first narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) service through the PS-LTE network, and that’s going to allow for some slick services—like the ability to help prevent natural disasters like fires as hundreds of IoT sensors are deployed to sense even the smallest size of embers.
But, citing national security, Samsung declined to get too precise about the public safety applications.
“Some of the elements that are included in the NB-IoT service for public safety include fire detection and facility management (i.e. electrical apparatus and water meter etc.),” Samsung told FierceWirelessTech in response to emailed questions. “That said, due to national security reasons, we are unable to disclose any further information about the specific services.”
In additional to LTE radio base stations that support 700 MHz, Samsung is providing KT with a virtualized core and the latest features of PS-LTE based on the 3GPP standard. Some of the features include MCPTT solutions, RAN sharing, evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service, Public Network IoT based on NB-IoT, Isolated eUTRAN Operation for Public Safety (IOPS) and device-to-device (D2D) network solutions.
Samsung said D2D and NB-IoT play crucial roles in creating public safety networks by ensuring a stable, seamless and reliable network in unfavorable environments. D2D, for example, allows direct communications without disruption between any two devices without traversing radio base stations or core networks even in areas where base stations are not provided.
Samsung’s latest project with KT marks the third in which they have partnered on PS-LTE network deployments. They collaborated on a PS-LTE network throughout Gangwon (Pyeongchang) province of South Korea in 2016, and on the 2017 delivery of the LTE-Railway service on a high-speed train traveling up to 155 mph using MCPTT solutions.
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The two companies now expect to expand PS-LTE further into the metropolitan areas around the country, including Seoul, Gyeonggi, Gangwon, Jeolla, Gyeongbuk and Chungnam provinces.