Verizon Onboard With NYC Subway Wireless

Verizon Wireless users in NYC can soon look forward to a welter of text messages, noisy calls, and cat videos on their subway commute below areas of Manhattan as the operator becomes the last major mobile operator to go underground in the Big Apple.

Verizon Wireless revealed Tuesday morning that it has finalized agreements with subway network provider, Transit Wireless LLC, to deploy 3G and 4G LTE service in subway stations. The service will be available "later this year," according to a release from Transit Wireless.

Verizon is the last of the major US mobile operators to get onboard with the subway service scheme. AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) and T-Mobile US Inc. are operational now in the 36 stations online, which stretch between Chelsea and 96 Street on multiple lines right now. Sprint Corp. (NYSE: S) said late in July that it will support NYC subway service "early in 2014." (See 4G LTE Grows (Above & Below).)

Transit Wireless is building out a system of distributed antennas (DAS) at NYC subway stations to extend 3G and 4G services. Operator base stations connect to Transit's radio interface and optical distribution system in its base station hotel. Radio signals are combined, converted to optical signals, and distributed on the Transit Wireless fiber optic cable through ducts under city streets to subway stations where the cables connect to multi-band RF antennas that connect to subscriber devices.

Here's a video from Transit on its plans:

Forty new subway stations are expected be online in the first quarter of 2014. The full network of 277 stations is expected to be live within four years.

Here are the stations that are live now:

— Dan Jones, Mobile Editor, Light Reading