Verizon no longer has a hold on service in the metro. This is great news for metro riders as all these years I have been wondering how that Verizon could be the only service the DC metro.  Now Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-mobile will all work in our beloved metro on October, 16th 2009 (knowing our metro it may be 2010).

There will be limited connectivity as only the following metro stations will have connectivity Ballston, Bethesda, Columbia Heights, Crystal City, Dupont Circle, Farragut North, Farragut West, Federal Center SW, Foggy Bottom-GWU, Friendship Heights, Gallery Pl-Chinatown, Judiciary Square, L’Enfant Plaza, McPherson Square, Metro Center, Pentagon, Pentagon City, Rosslyn, Smithsonian and Union Station.  The other stations will receive service periodically throughout the next year. In October 2012 the whole metro system (including the tunnels) will have service.

I think this is great news for the metro, riders, and employers.  Unfortunately I will now not have an excuse to answer my blackberry for thirty minutes at a time. It will also attract more metro riders as well as they will be connected while on their commute. On the weekends however I will be able to text, talk, play on the internet, talk on the phone, and listen to other people talk wait What?  It could be quite annoying to have multiple people talking in a small confined area.  I wonder if they will institute any rules?

I hope this is a turning of a page in a new book for metro.  This will hopefully enable metro to make more decisions like this that will improve the metro.  Overall this was a smart move by the metro and for the other carriers who have been locked out of the market for a while now.  I hope this will also bring in multiple ATMs as Chevy Chase Bank (now Capital One) has the current contract with the DC metro. I hope this change brings a lot more changes to the DC metro!

Sources: Beta News , Cellular News