Broadband wireless communications for high-speed trains: Opportunities and challenges

In the blink of an eye, you may miss the 350 km/h high-speed train as it thunders by, not mentioning the 574 km/h French TGV track train (April 2007) or the 581 km/h Japanese JR-Maglev train (December 2003). Recently, there have been growing interests to deliver true broadband wireless internet services to high-speed train passengers. To provide the broadband wireless services in such a high mobility environment, a number of technical challenges should be tackled, such as the severe Doppler shift problem, fast fading channel characteristics, fast power control and fast handover issues. The focus of this talk is on the anti-Doppler problem techniques, mobility management and network architecture. (Note: This work was partially supported by NSFC No. 60772087, 863 High-Tech R&D Program No.2009AA01Z238, 111 Project No. 111–2–14 and MoST Sino-Swedish Joint Research No.2008DFA12160.)