Cell service gets upgrade in tunnel system
Using cellphones underground was often difficult or impossible
Competing wireless providers join forces to boost previously spotty cell reception in Houston’s downtown tunnel system.
The downtown tunnels should no longer be a dead zone as a new antenna system provides cell reception for Houstonians walking the more than 6 miles of airconditioned corridors beneath the blistering sidewalks.
Competing wireless providers Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile have joined forces to fund and install the distributed antenna system. It’s solving a problem that has long plagued downtown workers and the businesses they frequent for lunch, coffee or birthday cards.
More importantly, it’s ensuring people can get help if there’s an underground emergency.
The lack of reception was a problem at Red’s Barber Shop. It became a more pressing problem when an employee suffered a small stroke. People were unable to immediately call for help, colleague Ronald Gongora recalled. Fortunately, the situation turned out all right.
“Being able to provide more access and improved safety to the city, that was a no-brainer,” Verizon spokeswoman Jeannine Brew said. Verizon was the lead on this project.
Previously, limited cell reception came from above-ground towers and was available where it could penetrate underground.
“Being able to provide more access and improved safety to the city, that was a nobrainer.”
There’s now an entire room filled with equipment for the antenna system below First City Tower at 1001 Fannin St.
Each wireless provider has equipment in this room that emits radio signals. Those signals are turned into fiber optic signals that can be distributed through fiber optic cables. The cables run through the tunnels’ ceilings and connect with stations that convert the signal back to radio signals. This ultimately provides cell reception to users in the tunnel.
“There has been a desire to get service in the tunnels for quite some time,” Brew said.
The project has been in the works for at least three years,
Verizon spokeswoman Jeannine Brew
and it became fully functional last month.
The wireless carriers also worked with the city to install a public safety communications system that will help first responders navigating emergency situations.
“It is a major public safety improvement that will eliminate dead zones that had hindered radio communications when our police and fire fighters were responding in the tunnels,” Mayor Sylvester Turner said in a statement.
Melvin Green, the shoe shiner at Red’s Barber Shop, said the antenna system also boosts employee safety.
They do, after all, spend all day underground.
“Sometimes it’s impossible for us to know what’s going on outside,” Green said, although the barbershop also has Wi-Fi.
Part of the reason it took so long to get the antenna system up and running is that the various portions of the tunnel are owned and operated by the buildings above it.
The wireless providers had to work with each one to get the system approved and installed.
Cameron Management, for instance, owns the historic Esperson Building, which occupies a full city block.
In 2016, Cameron Management completed a $2.5 million makeover to Esperson’s lobby and tunnel.
“Everybody always wants better cell reception,” said Jano Nixon Kelley, spokeswoman for Cameron Management.
Brew said the tunnels will also be getting public Wi-Fi, and the antenna system has capacity for increased bandwidth if people start using more data or the tunnels become more congested.
Daniel Perez, who was texting Friday beneath 1000 Main, agreed.
Perez said that it’s frustrating when he goes somewhere and can’t get a signal.
The 39-year-old works downtown and frequently eats in the tunnels for lunch.
He’s noticed an improvement with his wireless carrier, T-Mobile.
“You expect to have average coverage,” he said, “if not really great coverage.”