PennDOT & Wireless Carriers Slow To Restore Cell Service In Tunnels

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- It's pretty hard not to notice. If you enter one of Pittsburgh's tunnels right in the middle of a cell phone conversation, you've driven into a dead zone and lose signal.

"We had been in the tunnels for years," said Verizon Wireless's operations director Dave Yetsko.

Yetsko told KDKA money editor Jon Delano that Verizon Wireless was told to take out their equipment when PennDOT began to renovate the tunnels a couple years ago.

"As part of that refurb project, all the carriers needed to remove their infrastructure," said Yetsko.

"For employee safety, the antennas had to be removed," PennDOT's district 11 director Dan Cessna confirmed.

But that was then.

What's delaying the installation of new equipment?

"The process has taken much longer than we've been happy with," admits Cessna.

Cessna says he's heard the complaints and has experienced the dead zone himself.

"We get a lot of complaints too and we use the tunnels also."

Instead of allowing each carrier to re-install their own equipment, PennDOT now insists on one system that all the carriers can share, and that has taken time.

"There's a lot of people that had to be at the table when you're getting all these cell phone carriers that are actually competitors to come to agreement on something," says Cessna.

Yetsko says Verizon Wireless is ready to install the all-purpose system.

"Verizon Wireless was selected over two years ago to be the lead carrier for the Liberty, Fort Pitt, and Squirrel Hill Tunnels, and we've been in conversation with PennDOT since then."

"Verizon is very anxious to get the equipment installed," confirmed Cessna.

So what's the current hold-up.

Blame the lawyers now signing off on documents, says Cessna.

When will we get cell service restored?

Delano: "End of 2015?"

Cessna: "Won't commit to that date until we have the signed agreement back in place and then get a construction schedule from Verizon."

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