It's About Time

I spend a lot of time on subway platforms waiting for the next train to arrive.

It’s unproductive time for the most part, although its a great time to put on my iPod and tune out.

Thanks the the London subway bombings (proof that bad things sometimes result in good things), the MTA has put out an RFP to wire 277 of NY city’s 468 subway stations.

It’s about time.  The safety issues are important, but so are the simple things like finding your daughter on her way home from play practice, or being able to send an email or SMS that you are running late.

The unfortunate thing is they decided not to wire every station.  I have this terrible feeling that the outer boroughs are going to get less stations wired than Manhattan.  If so, that’s not right.

I think this is a step in the right direction.

The next step would be to put Wifi everywhere, but that’s less likely now that one large cell carrier is going to pony up big money to get an exclusive contract to wire the subway.

It’s too bad that cell phones that can use wifi aren’t available in a mass market way right now.  That would have been an excellent solution with a much better long term value proposition for everyone involved.

But regardless of all that, it’s about time we got cell phone coverage on the subway platforms of NYC and I applaud the MTA for making it happen.