Metro News Release

For immediate release: March 13, 2008

Metro moves closer toward making it easier to phone home

“Can you hear me now?” is a phrase Metro riders won’t have to say from an underground Metro train couple a years from now.

Metro managers won preliminary approval Thursday from a Board finance committee to ask companies for proposals to design, build, operate and maintain a new wireless communications system throughout the subway. The new system would carry broadband and expanded cell phone coverage through 47 underground stations and more than 50 miles of tunnels.

Riders can receive cell phone service from multiple providers at above ground stations, but the current underground wireless network only supports Verizon customers and Sprint phones that roam onto the network. Metro agreed to allow then Bell Atlantic Mobile Systems, which later became Verizon Wireless to build and own the current network in 1993. In exchange, Verizon has been paying the transit agency annual usage fees and built a public safety radio communications system for Metro. Transit agency officials say the wireless network is old and doesn’t support Verizon’s current broadband services, such as streaming video.

“This is an opportunity to get a technological upgrade, and make it easier for other wireless services to be used underground. It also can bring in more revenue for Metro,” said Suzanne Peck, Metro’s Assistant General Manager for Information Technology.

Peck said instead of building multiple communications systems, the new comprehensive network can support all cellular phone services, future operational and public safety radios, WiFi, and The Metro Channel – the authority’s project to install flat-panel screens that would provide real-time information and other programming in Metro trains, stations and buses.

Under the proposal, Metro would allow the winning bidder to build the network. Internet and phone companies would have to negotiate providing service with Metro’s new partner, who would pay licensing fees to the transit authority.

“We estimate we could get between $200,000 and $2 million a year in rent. It’s going to cost us nothing to build and maintain, and our customers could have WiFi and better cell phone service,” Peck said.

Metro technology managers anticipate the project would take one and half to four years to complete after an agreement is signed, which could be as early as the fall. Peck said it will take that long due to the short period of time the work can be done when the rail system is closed.

News release issued at 10:36 am, March 13, 2008.