The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (NY) is introducing wireless connections at all 277 underground subway stations, and NY1 took a behind-the-scenes look at the massive project.
“This is where history meets technology,” said Bill Bayne, CEO of Transit Wireless, referring to the project’s base station in Manhattan. The company is one year into the five-year, $200 million project to deploy the wireless system.
AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile will each connect to the Transit Wireless fiber optic network. “We interconnect and put a point of entry into each station, and pull our fiber into the equipment at each station,” Bayne said. Because the fiber optic cables can run only six miles from the base station, Transit Wireless will open another base in Manhattan, two in Brooklyn, and one each in the Bronx and Queens.
Details like these will be irrelevant to most riders, of course. “To us, it’s not really overly important what the rider sees that goes into it,” said MTA spokesperson Kevin Ortiz. “It’s obviously a complicated process, but our main goal is really to enhance the customer experience while they’re underground, and this goes a long way toward achieving that.”
All underground subway stations should be connected by 2017.
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