Oh joyous rapture. Now, not only will New York commuters have to deal with buskers, panhandlers, street preachers, nail clippers, music blasters, and random shouters, but they soon have the option of enjoying overhearing the conversations of their fellow commuters as well. Next Tuesday, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority unveils their long-awaited platform cell service. Don’t expect data on the trains themselves, but while you wait for your delayed train you can surf, text, or talk — as long as you’re on T-Mobile or AT&T (Sprint/Verizon solutions are expected down the line, no pun intended).
All kvetching about noise aside, this has a lot of potential for making lives easier. Still, I have to shake my head a bit at how tethered we’ve become to our phones that we can’t wait a 30-60 minute ride to use them.
I leave you with a tiny musical number that I believe is apropos.
[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkPh8As-y6E’]
It’s not necessarily about being tethered. A couple of weeks ago, I got
stuck at the W4 subway station for an hour – there were literally NO trains
in or out of the station. It would have been great if I could have called
my wife to tell her that I was still waiting for a train and she shouldn’t
be worried.
Also, the people most likely to be loud and annoying on trains/platforms are
the people that are loud/annoying because they think that headphones are
just miniature speakers for everyone to use.
I have noticed the ability to receive & send email while on the NYC transit system at random underground stops over the past month. Never tried to pull up a website but push email notifications have worked randomly at certain busy Manhattan stations..