The nation’s largest mass transit system moved one step closer to accommodating cell-phone and Wi-Fi usage for its estimated five million daily riders this week as New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) approved the plans of a private company to set up digital access on its subway system.
But passengers won’t be using iPhones on the A train anytime soon. The New York plan will take about two years to outfit the first six stations on Manhattan’s east side, and another four years to expand to 277 underground stations at a rate of 10 to 15 per month. The subway has 242 miles of routes and 468 stations, including those aboveground.
Tunnels, Too
The vendor is Transit Wireless, a partnership between Dianet Communications, based in Manhattan and Cranbury, N.J.; Nab Construction of College Point, N.Y.; and Q Wireless of Manhattan. The company was formed in 2007 specifically in response to the MTA’s request for proposals to design, market, install and operate a system serving the underground stations in New York’s five boroughs. The final plan was made possible by funding from Broadcast Australia, which oversaw the wireless system in Hong Kong.
The New York system will ultimately extend service from stations to tunnels, meaning rush-hour riders who are annoyed by delays, crowding, panhandling and unintelligible announcements will soon add gabby fellow passengers to their list of gripes.
The reported cost of the project is $200 million, plus a $46 million fee to the cash-strapped MTA over 10 years.
Several foreign subway systems, including those in Berlin, Paris, Singapore and Hong Kong, have cell or Wi-Fi service or both, but in the U.S., only Washington, D.C.’s Metro system is as close as New York. A February 2009 agreement there will allow the nation’s four leading carriers — Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, AT&T and T-Mobile — to…