By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter

South Korea is planning to combine its weather and climate monitoring stations and other individual sensors under a network based on Internet protocol (IP), government officials said Tuesday.

The next-generation network will enable a wider range of energy-saving solutions and efficient management systems in future urban development projects, and will be applied to the government plans for the ``renewal'' of the country's four major rivers, the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) said.

Trial projects are planned in Seoul, Jeju Island and Chuncheon in Gangwon Province.

``We have been receiving applications for `IP-USN' (ubiquitous sensor network) projects since last month, and Seoul, Jeju, and Chuncheon were picked as the consortium,'' said an official from the KCC's network policy planning division.

``The trial projects will continue through November, and we hope that they will provide opportunities for developing more efficient management solutions and reduce the overlap in investment among U-City projects in different regions.

``The IP-USN network will also be crucial for the renovation projects of the rivers. IP-USN will require only half the costs of building a new fixed-line network or wireless data service for water management, monitoring climate and CO2 levels, and managing facilities.''

Several regional governments are pushing ``U-City'' projects, which focus on applying information technology to civic planning and management in urban development. However, critics argue that the overlap in infrastructure investment and lack of cohesion between the different U-City networks are a problem.

KCC claims that the planned IP-USN could provide a solution.

The idea is to combine the sensors and closed-circuit camera (CCTV) information under a broadband convergence network (BcN), or a planned massive IP providing connection speeds between 50 to 100 megabytes per second (mbps), the Internet protocol version 6 (IPv6) and other next-generation Internet platforms.

The gathered information would be accessible anytime and anywhere by mobile, through the country's advanced second and third generation (3G) wireless networks and WiBro, the local variant of mobile WiMAX.

Jeju Island is planning a project to combine weather and climate information, currently gathered separately by the regional government and the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA), under an IP-USN framework and provide the information to wireless devices using the 2G and 3G networks.

Seoul will look to explore the possibility of using IP-USN for providing real-time traffic information, and monitoring road conditions and bus movements, while also evaluating air pollution levels. The information will be managed through the WiBro network.

Chuncheon is planning to use IP-USN to construct a ``smart well-being leisure city,'' using sensors to provide pulse monitoring and other health information to joggers through mobile devices, and the network for monitoring air pollution.

thkim@koreatimes.co.kr