Metro has announced that it has reached a new agreement with four major cellular carriers on a plan that will allow riders to both talk and use the Internet on their phones throughout the transit system's tunnels by the end of the decade.
The Washington Post reports that the transit agency expects to finalize and announce an agreement within a few weeks in which Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile would pay Metro tens of millions of dollars to wire the transit system's 101 miles of tunnels.
Metro had signed a contract in 2008 to have the carriers wire the tunnels themselves, but the work was delayed for years. Officials blamed the delays on unforeseen logistical hurdles, a bankruptcy and a focus on safety-related infrastructure work in the system.
