South Korea to change regulations to offer new and more spectrums for key emerging sectors, 6,859MHz for IoT, drones and self-driving cars

The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP) decided to make a total of 6,859 MHz of bandwidth available for three key emerging sectors with the greatest potential: IoT, drone and self-driving car. 

The decision was made to promote development of relevant technologies and formation of markets by proactively offering the resource to the sectors as the relevant markets began to form.

■ IoT

In order to streamline service provision in the sector,  IoT sector will be given additional 110 MHz

- 6 MHz at 940 MHz (940 - 946 MHz) for long-range IoT like location tracking, remote metering, etc., and

- 104 MHz at 1.7 GHz and 5 GHz for short-range purpose like smart home.

<Spectrum plan for IoT>

■ Drone

For drones, a total of 2,679 MHz will be given

- new 2,520 MHz for satellite-controlled drones, and

- additional 159 MHz for drone-related services like video transmission for environmental and fire monitoring (specifically, 100 MHz for small-sized drones and 59 MHz for medium/large-sized drones)

<Spectrum plan for drones>

 ■ Self-driving car

A total of 4,070 MHz will be assigned to self-driving cars.

- The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport is currently operating a pilot service of C-ITS, a new AI traffic control system (scheduled to be launched in 2018). For introduction of new services of the system, 70 MHz at 5.9 GHz will be assigned in advance.

- Assignment of additional 77 - 81 GHz (4 GHz width) for anti-collision HD radar will make it possible to detect a 7.5 cm-long object from up to 100m away.

<Spectrum plan for self-driving car>