New York Consider Wireless Broadband for Railways Stations and Trains

The New York MTA and Long Island Rail Road railways have issued an initial request for information for companies to provide wireless broadband services in its stations and trains. LIRR and Metro-North are, respectively, the largest and second largest commuter railroad services in the nation and operate every day of the year, although frequency of service varies by route, day of the week and time of day.

In addition to serving customers' needs, the Railroads are also interested in examining the possibility of using such a wireless broadband network for Railroad operational purposes.

As an option, one or both of the Railroads may decide to permit a technical trial of one or more technical solutions at no cost to the Railroads. After the Railroads review the responses to the RFEI (and the results of technical trials, if any), a decision will be made whether to proceed with a wide scale on-train and/or station wireless broadband implementation.

It is currently anticipated that such wireless network would be established, maintained and operated by an entity other than MTA or the Railroads.

The contact for the formal documents is George McDonald (gmcdonal@mtahq.org)

Posted to the site on 10th July 2009