The city’s thousands of Muni bus and train riders were frustrated in much of January by the glitchy upgrade of the system’s networking equipment from 2G to 3G service. SFMTA has known about the upgrade to 3G service by its vendor since 2012, but it claims to have been surprised by AT&T’s deactivation of its 2G wireless. “We understood we had more time until the phasing out of the 2G network would impact NextMuni,” according to an SFMTA blog, referring to the system that tracks its fleet of buses and trains.
At one point in early January, about 70 percent of the city’s vehicles were unable to communicate with NextMuni due to the glitch. The agency said nearly all of its vehicles would be able to communicate by the end of the month.
