The Société de transport de Montréal (STM) has announced half of the métro network is now online, as 34 of 68 stations now have wireless connectivity, from partners Rogers, Bell, Videotron and TELUS, with the latter being the project integrator.
Today will see the blue line’s Acadie station go online today, as the project rollout continues to be on schedule.
According to a press release, new connectivity is available between Côte-Vertu and Mont-Royal stations on the orange line, between Beaudry and Lionel-Groulx on the green line, between Snowdon and Acadie on the blue line, and on the entire yellow line.
The second half of 2017 will see stations north of Mont-Royal get connectivity, while the blue line will be completed up to Jean-Talon. In 2018, orange line stations north of Jean-Talon will be connected.
“The STM has made a clear commitment to improving the customer experience, and deploying the mobile network in the métro is a great example of that,” states Philippe Schnobb, Chairman of the STM, in a press release. “It will make the ride so much more pleasant. I want to applaud the work and the cooperation of our partners, Bell, Rogers, TELUS and Vidéotron, who have led this project so skillfully and introduced the Montréal métro into the select club of plugged-in underground transportation networks.”
The project started in 2014, with a completion date set for 2020 to have the entire metro’s 71 kilometres of lines and 68 stations blanketed with LTE, part of a partnership with the Big 3 and Videotron, sharing a $50 million investment.
Originally, Chicago’s Extenet had the contract to deploy a wireless mobile network in the Montreal metro, but gave up after it failed to land negotiations with Rogers, Telus, Bell and Videotron. Once Extenet was out of the picture, the Big 3 and Videotron agreed to build the network out themselves, eliminating a middle man.
