Subject: [NEXTEL-1] With new tunnel, longer dead zone for cellphones

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 18:43:56 -0500

With new tunnel, longer dead zone for cellphones

By Anthony Flint, Globe Staff, 12/16/2003

For all the awesome engineering and technology that make up the Big Dig, the
newest tunnel in
the $14.6 billion project will lack one basic function that most drivers desire
-- cellphone service.

Drivers on Interstate 93 south are
scheduled to begin traveling
underground Saturday, joining their
signal-less counterparts on the
northbound side, which also lacks
cellphone reception. There is no
cellphone reception in the I-90
extension under Fort Point Channel,
either, although drivers can make and
take calls in the Ted Williams Tunnel.
That means the Big Dig cellphone
dead zone will reach nearly 6 miles.
More of the project will be without
service than with it.

The reason for this has to do with
money, not engineering. The Big Dig
wants to raise as much revenue as
possible from telecommunications
companies for the right to install and rent space for antennas in the tunnels.
The project is
counting on millions from that revenue to partly offset cost overruns of three
years ago.

But the cellphone companies, normally in fierce competition with one another,
are in uniform
agreement in telling Big Dig officials that they won't pay the kind of charges
the project
successfully negotiated for the right to wire the Ted Williams Tunnel, which was
done before the
recent industry-wide collapse.

Paul Trane, an analyst with the Somerville-based Telecommunications Insight
Group, said Big Dig
project managers were confident they had something extremely valuable to lease,
antenna space
in tunnels, just at the point when cellphone providers started cutting back on
costs.

"Big Dig officials," Trane said, "will find they need to find a better balance
between providing
service for customers and meeting revenue needs."

The providers say they want to offer customers service in the tunnels, but the
rent has to be
affordable. The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which oversees the Big Dig,
has proposed that
the six major telecommunications companies pay $1.5 million to $2.5 million a
year in rent -- and
that's after pitching in to pay for the $10 million installation of what is
essentially a long antenna
through the I-93 and I-90 tunnels.

That revenue will be on top of the nearly $900,000 the project collects annually
from the
companies for running antennas through the Ted Williams Tunnel.

"We are negotiating with the companies but it has proved to be challenging
because there are
multiple parties who have to agree, and the companies do not all approach the
deal the same
way," said Doug Hanchett, Turnpike Authority spokesman.

Hanchett said project managers hope to have a deal in principle "in the next
couple of months."
Then the installation of the shared antenna would begin, and cellphone reception
would follow
sometime after.

Hanchett described the major providers -- AT&T Wireless, Cingular, Nextel,
Sprint PCS, T-Mobile
USA, and Verizon Wireless -- as each having different concerns. But the
companies'
representatives sounded a similar note of caution when asked about paying high
rates to offer
service in the new tunnels.

"We're definitely interested in being in there. We serve the business community,
and they
commute through those tunnels and we would love to be able to provide service,"
said John
Redman, spokesman for Nextel Communications. "But we have to invest our capital
dollars
wisely. We have a fiduciary responsibility to our shareholders and a
responsibility to our users,
and we have to balance the two."

Alexa Kaufman, spokeswoman for Cingular, said the Big Dig deal is being
considered. "We
haven't signed on the dotted lines," she said.

Kaufman and others acknowledged the frustration of customers who are driving
into an engineering
marvel and lose cellphone reception.

"We expect to be in the tunnels by the first half of 2004," she said. "You want
ubiquitous coverage
for customers along the major corridors."

The lack of cellphone reception is not the only technological shortcoming in the
new roadway
system. The project has suffered through other problems.

Several million dollars had to be tapped from the project's contingency funds to
fix a reception gap
in public safety communications that was occurring at the mouth of tunnels.

The project also had to pay $11 million for a temporary system of traffic
monitoring cameras and
air-quality sensors -- the nervous system for the new roadway -- in the I-93
south tunnel. It still
faces huge bills from Honeywell, the contractor that was supposed to do all that
work.

The new I-93 south, from the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge to Dewey
Square, is slated to
open to traffic on Saturday.

Anthony Flint can be reached at [email-masked]

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2003/12/16/with_new_tunnel_longer_dead_zone_for_cellphones/

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