Watch mobile TV at 300kph
As if to demonstrate how many light years ahead of us the Koreans are, customers of the Korean Train Expess (KTX) will soon be able to watch TV on their DMB-enabled mobile TV phones whilst speeding across the Korean countryside on a KTX bullet train. Nothing unusual about that, you may think, until you learn that the KTX travels at 300kph!
The mobile TV phones use satellite DMB, so there's no need for basestation handovers as the content is broadcast from satellite. However, the satellite signals can't travel through tunnels and struggle to penetrate a train carriage's metal roof, so 'gap fillers' will be used in key places along the lines to relay signals from the satellite to the train carriages. The plan is to enable football-addicted Koreans to watch the World Cup this summer no matter where they are.
I'm not envious. Koreans don't need to watch the World Cup on a bullet train, as at 300kph, they've hardly got a long wait before they arrive home in time for the kick off. Meanwhile, we in the UK put up with overcrowded trains that struggle to reach a third of the bullet train's speed (if they ever arrive at the station in the first place), and are lucky if we can manage more than a 5 minute conversation before a mobile call is dropped. But no, I'm not envious!
