MuniWireless

The New York MTA and Long Island Rail Road have issued a Request for Expressions of Interest regarding the deployment of wireless broadband in trains and stations. Responses are due on 1 September 2009. Public transport companies are increasingly providing wireless broadband (mostly Wi-Fi) to passengers, often for free, to entice people away from their cars and other transportation firms.

Here’s an excerpt from the RFEI:

“The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (“MTA”), together with the Long Island Rail Road (“LIRR”) and Metro-North Commuter Railroad (“Metro-North”, and together with LIRR, the “Railroads”), are considering the deployment of wireless broadband services on the Railroads’ trains and in the Railroads’ stations. This RFEI is being issued to solicit expressions of interest from providers of such services.”

“LIRR operates between New York City and Long Island and within Long Island. Metro-North operates between New York City and the northern suburban counties of Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess; from the City through the southern portion of the State of Connecticut; through an arrangement with New Jersey Transit, the Port Jervis and Pascack Valley commuter rail services to Orange and Rockland Counties; and within such counties and the State of Connecticut. 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.”

. . . .

“The RFEI will provide MTA and the Railroads the opportunity to review different technologies and solutions and to evaluate different business cases. 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 pursuant to a subsequent request for proposals (“RFP”).”

“Given that MTA and the Railroads are at a relatively early stage in our consideration of whether to proceed to implementation of a wireless broadband network as described in this RFEI, we recognize that Respondents may not be willing to spend the time and money necessary to develop detailed responses to all of the questions and specific requests for information that are set forth below.
However, the better the quality of the responses we receive, including specific consideration of the Railroads’ business, policy and operating environments, the better we will be able to (a) measure the interest of particular Respondents and (b) determine whether and how to proceed.”

Request for Expressions of Interest in Broadband Wireless on Trains and in Stations

Related posts:

1. Cablevision doubles size of East Coast Wi-Fi network
2. Rural New York counties move ahead on public broadband plan
3. Long Island wireless RFP released