Wifi coming to NYC subways!
Friday, July 30, 2010 at 12:54PMOMG OMG OMG OMG OMGGG!!! This is GREAT!!!
Per Mashable: Good news for any New Yorker who hates interacting with others during their daily commute (read: all New Yorkers): Wi-Fi and mobile service are coming to a subway near you. Yup, now even the Mole People won’t be able to escape the outside world.
According to Bloomberg, after three years of stalled progress, Transit Wireless LLC — a conglomerate of wireless and construction companies that was awarded a contract to undergo this project with New York Transit — has finally found the money to move forward. Broadcast Australia has footed the bill, which will bring NYC up to speed with Singapore, Berlin and Tokyo — all of which currently have Wi-Fi in the tubes.
Back in 2007, Transit Wireless LLC had promised to get the job done in 10 years, now it has two years to outfit six stations near New York’s Union Square, and then four more years for the other 271 platforms. The Wi-Fi comes in the form of smoke detector-size antennas, and will afford passengers access on platforms, mezzanines and in sections of the tunnels (not the whole tunnel). Overall, the whole deal will cost $200 million dollars — which begs the question: If the city’s willing to go to the trouble to go wireless, why do I have to take a shuttle nine weekends out of 10 because they’re “doing repairs on the tracks”? But I digress…
Pretty soon, it seems, a goodly portion of NYC will be Wi-Fi ready; AT&T outfitted Times Square with free wireless two months ago and ubiquitous coffee chain Starbucks offers pro bono access as well. Just think, that whole “I was stuck in a tunnel” excuse is never going to be the same…
I am SOOOO excited for this!! I sincerely think we need wifi everywhere ... however, as any good nerd knows - that would basically make cell phone service completely unnecessary subsequently making a billion dollar industry irrelevant. Something uber important biz peeps don't like hearing ... I have no idea what any of this means in the long run, but I will take this small victory and say this is AWESOME!!!
Reader Comments (2)
"however, as any good nerd knows - that would basically make cell phone service completely unnecessary"
I'm going to disagree with you on this point. I don't think it would make cell service obsolete, at least not anytime in the near future... Yes, we can do skype/facetime/whatever over Wifi, but Wifi simply isn't up to the point where it can handle everything (voice/data) 100% with the consistency that is necessary (and what users demand). You start running into jitter, ping, and other QoS issues when you're handling 100% of the traffic. These issues exist now with VoIP phones on wired connections. It's a nightmare.
Even with the massive wifi rollouts being done/planned, and advances in the technology, I think cell towers are here to stay for a while.
Signed, your loyal telephony nerd :)
its true, but i think BOTH networks are becoming too cluttered. #facepalm