New York City flipped the switch and enabled Wi-Fi and cellular network in all underground subway stations. Jeremy Ward, of Transit Wireless, joins us to talk about this large scale project and what it took to do it.

This episode is sponsored by Metageek

New York City – A Connected City

Jeremy Ward of Transit Wireless joins us on the show to talk about getting the underground subway stations connected with Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity. The project includes 120 miles of fiber optic cabling, 4,000 cellular antennas, and 5,000 Wi-Fi access points. The network supports the users who use mass transportation every day, public safety, transit communications, and over 3,000 Help Point kiosks for riders.

Jeremy discusses the challenges that came up with deploying a solution like this in an underground subway station. Many challenges to Wi-Fi make planning very important. There are issues from the environment, including:

* Noise

* Dirt

* Heat

* Cold weather

* Brake dust from the trains

* Pressure washers

* Vandalism

* and RF

It’s very possible to get RF reflected from moving trains!

Placement can be tough to tackle underground. One of the important things to consider is vandalism. Jeremy’s team has tested different enclosures by taking a baseball bat to them!

Other topics discussed on this episode:

* Design requirements

* User traffic

* Hardware considerations

* Extreme Networks

* Motorola

* Wireless LAN Controllers

* Security

* Analytics

New York City Subway Wi-Fi Stats

Links & Resources

* @realjeremyward

* Transit Wireless