“In cooperation with operators, we want to expand state-of-the-art technology into the entire Prague metro network, which is currently a high-speed LTE network, and in the future also 5G,” said Petr Witowski, DPP’s own WiFi director.
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According to Witowski, the costs of the transport company to build its own WiFi network in metro stations would be in the hundreds of millions of crowns. Another tens of millions a year would cost the operation and maintenance of the system. “We do not want to support double-track and unnecessarily spend additional resources on building and operating a parallel system that can never provide the speed, quality and stability of a signal as an LTE network,” he added.
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WiFi connection was available at eight metro stations, namely line A at the Museum, line B at Florence, Náměstí Republiky and Smíchovské nádraží, and line C at Florence, Hlavní nádraží, the Museum and the Prague Uprising. With the exception of Náměstí Republiky, these stations are now covered by the LTE high-speed network signal, including adjacent tunnels.
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After the Českomoravská and Hradčanská stations, the Dejvická, Karlovo náměstí and Můstek stations on line B will be covered by a high-speed signal this month. In September, passengers at the Chodov, Opatov and Háje stations will receive the signal. In the last quarter of this year, the LTE network should also be in the Národní třída, Náměstí Republiky and Náměstí Míru stations.
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All operators participate in the coverage
All three Czech operators and CETIN participate in the coverage. Last year, the DPP Supervisory Board approved a 20-year contract with the consortium, where the operators will pay 120 million crowns to the transport company for the first ten years. According to earlier information from the consortium, the metro should be completely covered by the signal in 2022. The planned line D should cover it already during construction.
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The Transport Company of the Capital is the largest carrier providing public transport in the Czech Republic. It carried 1.17 billion passengers last year. The company employs over 11,000 people and the sole shareholder is the city of Prague.
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