[Yonhap Photo]
SEOUL, Jan. 08 (Aju News) -- KT, a major South Korean telecom company, secured a license to operate a 45-seat autonomous bus for public transportation using a 5G wireless network on urban roads.
It was the first license of its kind in South Korea, KT said, vowing to step up the establishment of infrastructure for the commercial use of self-driving buses.
South Korean urban roads are heavily congested, hampering the development of autopilot driving. Unlike self-driving cars like those being developed by Uber and Google, buses follow predetermined routes and can get away with a lower level of machine intelligence.
KT will use 5G and hybrid vehicle-to-everything (V2X) network services which involves a security-enhanced long-term-evolution (LTE) network and wireless access for vehicle environments. The hybrid network will allow KT to analyze and manage big data related to autonomous driving.
Last year, KT won a license to build the world's first autonomous vehicle cluster in Pangyo at the southern outskirts of Seoul. Construction of a core telecom infrastructure such as a 5G wireless network and big data platforms would be completed by the end of 2019.
Competition is getting fierce among South Korean and foreign tech firms to commercialize a 5G network. Because of its fast speed, many tech firms find it suitable for transferring and analyzing a vast amount of data. KT will showcase various 5G services during next month's Winter Olympics in South Korea.
reporter
Lim Chang-won
cwlim34@ajunews.com
