Grapefeed

Perhaps it was just a fluke.

As I took the train to work this morning, I kept my iPhone in my pocket for the duration of the trip. Most of the apps I use require a data signal of some sort and since I was neither listening to music nor playing a game, I didn’t have much need to look at it.

When we pulled into the Gallery Place-Chinatown station, though, I remembered something I wanted to jot down in Notes. I pulled the device from my pocket; lo and behold, I had an AT&T signal. A strong AT&T signal. Full bars.

Underground, people!

For well over a decade, Verizon—née Bell Atlantic—had an exclusive stranglehold over the underground mobile phone signals in D.C.’s Metrorail system. With the exception of MVNO carriers that used Verizon’s network—as a former customer, Amp’d comes to mind—and Sprint’s tenuous connection via roaming, users of any other network were just plain SOL if they needed to make a quick call while underground.

Earlier this year, Metro announced that the big four carriers—AT&T, Verizon, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile—would build a network that allows their customers to use their phones in the underground stations. The plan was reiterated in a recent online chat on the Washington Post’s site. The busiest stations would be outfitted by October; the remainder are slated for completion by 2012.

Surprised by my discovery, I tweeted via text message to see if it really worked or if my phone was playing tricks on me. True enough, while my train held at the station at 8:28 a.m., my tweet went through and posted right away. I was floored.

The tweet I posted at 8:28 a.m. today while I was underground in Metro's Gallery Place-Chinatown station.

All that said, I have a favor to ask of my Washingtonian friends on AT&T: if you go through Gallery Place-Chinatown station, check your phone for a signal and report back to me.