For years, one of the most common experiences for those moving on the subway in New York was the total loss of connection in the tunnels, especially in the sections below the East River between Brooklyn and Manhattan. A structural limit of the underground network that has engraved on communications, work and digital services. But now the system is changing, with a progressive extension of coverage along some of the busiest lines of the network of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
The operation is led by AT&T in collaboration with Boldyn Networks, a company specialized in the development of digital infrastructure. New network segments in tunnels have been activated in recent months, allowing for the first time a stable connection – including 5G technology – even in historically isolated traits.
The latest update covers lines 4 and 5 in Bowling Green and Fulton Street, in the heart of Manhattan’s financial district, and the G line between Bedford-Nostrand Avenues and Hoyt-Schermerhorn Streets, Brooklyn. Fulton Street is one of the most important hubs in the network, while the G line is the only one that connects neighborhoods of Brooklyn and Queens directly without passing through Manhattan.
These interventions are added to previous developments, such as the activation of the cover in the Joralemon Street tunnel – one of the oldest in the metropolitan network, inaugurated in 1908 – and in other segments of the G line. With the opening of new operating routes, such as the one between Court Square and Bedford-Nostrand, digital continuity corridors are being formed: today it is possible to maintain seamless connection along increasingly larger portions of the route, for example between Borough Hall and Fulton Street.
The project had already been announced in 2022 within an infrastructure plan that aims to extend the mobile coverage along all 418 miles (about 673 kilometers) of New York metro tracks. An infrastructure of this scale involves complex interventions: installation of antennas in tunnels, laying fiber optics, integration with existing systems and management of interference. This is why the implementation takes place in stages and with different times between operators.
At the moment, in fact, the cover is not uniform and not all the managers are active in every section already enabled. However, the progressive extension of the service is changing the daily experience of commuters, approaching the metro to the connectivity standards already widespread in other large cities. For a network of the most extensive and used in the world, it is an indispensable infrastructure update and that already now affects directly the use of metropolitan space.
L’articolo In New York City you can use the phone even in the metro tunnels, more and more comes from IlNewyorkese.
