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Verizon Wireless customers in Washington are soon going to have precious little left to brag about to their friends with other cell phone companies. Metro today released the first part of its schedule for installing expanded wireless service in the system's underground stations and tunnels. The new wireless network, the first phase of which will be completed by mid-October, will be able to be accessed by people who subscribe to any of the four major cell phone companies.
The first step will involve installing broader cell phone service, which will work for Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, AT&T and T-Mobile customers, in the 20 busiest underground Metro stations. That work actually begins this weekend, and is expected to be up and running by Friday, October 16 (and that date should hold more or less firm, since WMATA is attempting to comply with a deadline imposed by Congress on this one). The following stations will get cell phone service first: Ballston, Bethesda, Columbia Heights, Crystal City, Dupont Circle, Farragut North, Farragut West, Federal Center SW, Foggy Bottom-GWU, Friendship Heights, Gallery Pl-Chinatown, Judiciary Square, L'Enfant Plaza, McPherson Square, Metro Center, Pentagon, Pentagon City, Rosslyn, Smithsonian and Union Station.
The next phase will be to install service at the remaining 27 underground stations, which will take another year to complete. Following that, work will move inside Metro's tunnels, with the whole system expected to be wired by October 2012.
The wireless companies will also be building a second network for Metro at the same time, which unlike the one for cell phone customers, will be owned and operated by Metro for the agency's own public safety and operational communications. That second network will also provide the means for the launch of The Metro Channel, the video screen-based information feed for Metro passengers envisioned by John Catoe.
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EEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is AWESOME!!!!
Huzzah! I will now be able to regale my fellow passengers with my broadcast cellphone conversations regarding the texture and consistency of my bowel movements, arguments with my bookie, and the plot from last night's episode of Amos & Andy!
So it would be different in that now you'd be talking into a cellphone with service?
*screams like a little school girl at a Backstreet Boys concert*
"I'm so excited, dooo doo doo, and I just can't hide it, do do do dooo, I'm about to lose control and I think I like it!!!"
Also, in all seriousness, it's about damn time! LOL My iPhone has been longing to work underground for so long, there is nothing more aggravating than being late BECAUSE OF METRO and not being able to tell the people waiting on me about it!
a little shout out there to the Pointer Sisters!
what does metro have against PG? Also, what does this mean, will the phones only work in the stations or will they work when traveling on train from station to station?
Not to be sassy but if you read in detail it says that tunnel work will take longer. You might get some risidual signal as you go into the tunnel but it would likely fade out quickly. But, just being able to make a call or send a text, even if only in the station platform area, is still a blessing! You spend more time waiting in a station than you do in between them anyway (most of the time).
Huzzah, indeed! As someone who switched to AT&T from Verizon for the iPhone, I'm glad. This actually was part of my decision whether to do it or not.
I predict that the next three years will be filled with subway assaults involving irate passengers shoving cellphones up their owners' a$$es.
Heh. "Filled."
Great, so when there's another incident because of the rails/signals/etc being in need of repair, I'll be able to contact the outside world.
Just remember their is a difference than having the 3g network in the Metro tunnels than actually having a useful 3g network in the Metro tunnels. Difference is about 5-10 years.
"The new wireless network... will be able to be accessed by people who subscribe to all four major cell phone companies."
Collect all four!
I only have two, so I guess I'm out of luck.
Nice catch! :-)
Oh man, The Metro Channel? I hope I can start getting that on Comcast.
I think it's called Bravo.
Now it will be much easier to tell your wife that you'll be 45 minutes late because the Metro is f%*$ed up!
Gee my Verizon cell phone works just fine. What's the big deal?
Yay, now the asshats on iphones can be even more annoying. I'm going to talk on my verizon phone louder than you in the tunnel.
Yeah right - like people with iPhones actually use it for verbal communication!
Sprint's actually had service in the tunnels for years.
Sprint has some sort of agreement with Verizon that allows us Sprint users to roam on the Verizon network for free when a Sprint signal is unavailable. If you watch your phone closely, you'll see that you're roaming on Verizon whenever you have signal underground.
my understanding is that Sprint and Verizon use the same technology while T Mobile and AT&T use something else so Sprint users can roam on the Verizon network and yeah, they have some agreement where it doesn't cost the user any money. T Mobile and AT&T users can't roam on the Verizon network whether they want to or not
The technologies are CDMA (Verizon and Sprint) and GSM (what the rest of the world uses with the exception of Japan).
Oh I have such mixed feelings about this... DC is already filled with obnoxious douche-nozzles who carry on overly loud conversations about a new strange rash while they're standing in public, or those jerk-wads on verizon in the metro...
I think you're going to see a lot more junkpunching going on when people become SUPER OBNOXIOUS!
But on the super awesome side, I'll be able to use my AT&T phone to discuss my regularity issues and the awesome farts I have at work... Because I live in DC therefore the world revolves around ME...
Maybe you should do what the rest of us who get annoyed and bitchy easily do--use some headphones or something!
Would you care for some cheese with that whine?! Oye!
18 comments and no one has managed to unearth the most important effect of expanding network service underground: that train operators can now sext message with the bus drivers above ground.
I like Catoe's thinking on this one: not penalizing riders' accessibility to voice and data services underground just because a select few train operators cannot find it in themselves to keep their phones in their pockets/bags.
I hope they're actually thinking ahead and making this system easily upgradeable to the future wireless technologies that will soon be rolled out above ground.
And I thought they were also planning on adding WiFi service to the stations. Any news on that?
That's interesting. Maybe cafe' tables, latte's and a cute girl wearing a beret.
More like $9 sandwiches, no ghetto lattés, and some a-hole holding up the cashier because HE'S ON THE GODDAMNED PHONE.
Awesome, now when I'm trapped in a crushed train car under a pile of mangled bodies, I'll be able to post photos to Facebook while I'm waiting for the first responders to dig me out. Someone will still complain about me using my cellphone on the train, but when the rescue crew shows up there will be no way to know it wasn't the crash that did them in.
so they're wiring the entire metro system for cell phone service... but we can't get a port-a-potty or two?
Who are you?! Where are your priorities?! For god sakes man!
lol
You are allowed to use the restrooms in the Metro stations, you just have to ask the station manager to open it for you.
What's the point? They'll smell like sex and a$$ all the time anyway.
Doesn't anyone use the Maxwell Smart Shoe Phone anymore? Chief, activate the Cone of Silence!
First the good news, Metro is installing cell service for all carriers in the entire system.
Then the bad news. As on an aircraft, you're not allowed to use your phone while the train is moving.
I think they oughta institute a "No Phone Calls" rule on planes in flight and on Metro. Texting only...so as not to annoy the fuck out of me, errrrr...anyone. Just one man talkin'...
Am I the only one who enjoyed the fact that we had little to no cell service underground? It certainly has its benefits (especially in delays and emergencies), but I find that not having to deal with everyone yapping on their phone helps keep the train quiet....which made riding the metro one of the most peaceful times of my day....unless of course it's when entire packs of school children take over the car, scream obscenities at eachother and act so incredibly rude that I have to change cars to get away from the loud obnoxious madness.....