AT&T will finish connecting to the Metro
This year, lines 4, 5 and 6 of the capital transport system will also have free WiFi
Users of the Metro network consume 70 gygabites a day, on average / AdriánVázquez | The Sun of Mexico
To make the wait easier or the return home less stressful, this year there will be free WiFi on 11 of the 12 lines of the Mexico City Metro, all of them connected to the AT&T network.
To date, the only ones that remain to get on the infrastructure of the American company are 4, 5 and 6, in which their implementation was delayed from 2020 due to the pandemic.
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“We work together with the Metro staff, but they also reduced the number of employees and are working remotely. The work we have been doing has been a little slower than expected, but surely in 2021 we will finish the lines that we need, ”JerónimoDiez, AT & T’s director of Technology and Information, commented in an interview with El Sol de México.
The manager explained that, on average, 3.7 million Mexicans connect to the Metro’s internet network per day, who consume up to 70 gigabytes per hour to browse social networks, mainly Facebook and Twitter, although there are also those who prefer to watch movies on Netflix or download music.
Due to the health crisis, this consumption fell 28 percent, although the company also observed that people began to use instant messaging applications to a greater extent, such as WhatsApp and FaceTime.
The connection in the Metro lines is a project that arose in March 2017, when Miguel ÁngelMancera was head of Government, and JesúsGaviño was director of the Collective Transport System (STC).
The technological deployment in the Metro is part of the three billion dollar investment that AT&T announced when it arrived in Mexico in 2015. The plan seeks to offer connectivity and development solutions for five key areas, which are education, security, health and well-being , environment and business acceleration.
In this process, JerónimoDiez recounted, line 7 was one of the most complicated to connect, due to its high temperatures in the tunnels and the lack of electricity.
“Our technicians are used to working at high altitudes and with antennas outdoors, so we had to make a bigger effort to connect all the stations,” he added.
Connectivity in the Metro also brought benefits to AT&T, as the process allowed it to expand and strengthen its network coverage in the areas surrounding Metro stations, saving on the installation of antennas on the streets.
Line 12 is the only Metro route that remains to connect to the company’s internet, although work is already underway to carry out the project in its entirety. In addition, it is currently the longest in the STC, with almost 25 kilometers in length that go from Tláhuac to Mixcoac and, soon, it will reach the Observatory.
INCREASE DATA CONSUMPTION: AT&T will finish connecting to the Metro
The Director of Technology and Information of AT&T Mexico explained that thanks to the pandemic they managed to increase users and data consumption in the country, with March, April and December being the key months within this development.
At the beginning of the pandemic, he said, most of the data was used in video conferencing applications, mainly in Zoom, which reported long hours of use.
Months later, people started using other tools and there was also a spike in calls between states.
“The contingency and the consumption of people has had different stages, some products increased and then fell. The epidemiological traffic light had a lot to do with it here, ”he said.
In the final stretch of last year, the holidays continued to drive the growth of the company, since between December 24 and 25, it registered a 38 percent increase in the use of applications and data.
The hours with peak traffic were between 9 pm and 10 pm on Christmas Eve, while the largest increases were observed in the first two hours of Christmas.
By this time, FaceTime and WhatsApp also topped the list of programs used by people to call their families and wish them a Merry Christmas or New Year. The latter raised up to 40 percent the consumption of the people compared to the past days.
“At Christmas we always see a lot of movement different from the average of other times of the year, but in this 2020 it was really something different due to the pandemic and that caused changes in the peak hours and applications that people use.”
