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All New York City Subway Stations Will Have WiFi Service Starting Monday

By Darien Cavanaugh
Published on: 15:45 PST, Jan 8, 2017

Riding the subway in New York City is about to get a whole lot more convenient, and probably a whole lot safer as well. Starting on Monday, January 9*, all subway stations in the city will have free WiFi service via Transit Wireless, The Verge‘s Andrew Liptak reports. The only exceptions are a few stations that are currently being renovated. They will receive service after the renovations are complete.

“The largest underground mass transit system in the US is now fully wired,” Liptak writes.

“New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Transit Wireless have completed upgrades to the city’s subway system, allowing commuters to make calls from all of New York City’s Subway stations as of tomorrow.”

The Transit Wireless website provides instructions for logging on to the free WiFi service and also gives other helpful tips.

“Transit Wireless is launching FREE subway Transit Wireless WiFi in all underground subway stations throughout Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx. After entering a station, connect to TransitWirelessWiFi and stay connected for one hour of free service as you travel from station to station. After the hour, simply sign in again for another hour of free service. Look for station signage indicating a Wi-Fi enabled station. Now you can surf the web, email, listen to music and stay connected while in transit.”

Transit Wireless estimates that the 277 subway stations connected to its WiFi network will provide approximately 8.6 million free WiFi sessions every month to the subways 5.6 million daily riders.

In addition to the standard WiFi access, commuters will also have access to the free “Subway Reads” catalog of excerpts, according to The New York Daily News.

“Under the promotional program in tandem with Penguin Random House publications, commuters can download 175 selections, choosing 10-, 20- and 30-minute chunks,” the Daily News reports.

Supplying free WiFi and cellular service to commuters has been a project long in the making. The plan was first introduced in September of 2007, but it stalled out for three years after that. The WiFi was finally installed and several months of reviews and audits last year showed that the system was working and that the coverage was sufficient to move forward.

Having access while commuting on the subway will surely be a quality of life improvement for many New Yorkers. Even just little things like being able to get a heads up on a sudden change of plans can help to avoid an annoying inconvenience and save a lot of time for people.

“Now you can pick up the groceries — get the list from the wife,” Greg Austin told the Daily News.

“Things that before you had to wait till you had a signal again.”

Most commuters appear to be thrilled with the new service, but there are perhaps still a few hiccups.

“Some apps don’t load completely, like in Twitter, the pictures won’t show up,” Jerron McCleod told the Daily News.

“It’s not perfect, but it’s nice because you never know when you’ll need to communicate with somebody.”

The subway WiFi system comes with a $300 million price tag for the city, and while it is up and running, commuters are still going to have to wait a little longer for traditional cellular service. The Daily News says cellular service should be ready to go in the subways sometime next year.

*Note: The New York Daily News says the system will be active a day earlier, on Sunday, January 8.

[Featured Image by Spencer Platt/Getty Images]

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