Banks of Wisconsin, Kenosha, Wisconsin, was closed today by the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions,

Media Contact:
Greg Hernandez (202) 898-6984
Cell: (202) 340-4922
Email: ghernandez@fdic.gov

Banks of Wisconsin, Kenosha, Wisconsin, was closed today by the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with North Shore Bank, FSB, Brookfield, Wisconsin, to assume all of the deposits of Banks of Wisconsin.

The two branches of Banks of Wisconsin, which did business as Bank of Kenosha, will reopen as branches of North Shore Bank, FSB, during their normal business hours. Depositors of Banks of Wisconsin will automatically become depositors of North Shore Bank, FSB. Deposits will continue to be insured by the FDIC, so there is no need for customers to change their banking relationship in order to retain their deposit insurance coverage up to applicable limits. Customers of Banks of Wisconsin should continue to use their existing branch until they receive notice from North Shore Bank, FSB that it has completed systems changes to allow other North Shore Bank, FSB branches to process their accounts as well.

This evening and over the weekend, depositors of Banks of Wisconsin can access their money by writing checks or using ATM or debit cards. Checks drawn on the bank will continue to be processed. Loan customers should continue to make their payments as usual.

As of March 31, 2012, Banks of Wisconsin had approximately $134.0 million in total assets and $127.6 million in total deposits. In addition to assuming all of the deposits of the failed bank, North Shore Bank, FSB agreed to purchase approximately $97.4 million of the failed bank's assets. The FDIC will retain the remaining assets for later disposition.

Customers with questions about today's transaction should call the FDIC toll-free at 1-800-355-0814. The phone number will be operational this evening until 9:00 p.m., Central Daylight Time (CDT); on Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., CDT; on Sunday from noon to 6:00 p.m., CDT; on Monday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., CDT; and thereafter from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., CDT. Interested parties also can visit the FDIC's Web site at http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/kenosha.html.

The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $26.3 million. Compared to other alternatives, North Shore Bank, FSB's acquisition was the least costly resolution for the FDIC's DIF. Banks of Wisconsin is the 14th FDIC-insured institution to fail in the nation this year, and the first in Wisconsin. The last FDIC-insured institution closed in the state was Legacy Bank, Milwaukee, on March 11, 2011.

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Congress created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in 1933 to restore public confidence in the nation's banking system. The FDIC insures deposits at the nation's 7,019 banks and savings associations, and it promotes the safety and soundness of these institutions by identifying, monitoring and addressing risks to which they are exposed. The FDIC receives no federal tax dollars — insured financial institutions fund its operations.

FDIC press releases and other information are available on the Internet at www.fdic.gov, by subscription electronically (go towww.fdic.gov/about/subscriptions/index.html) and may also be obtained through the FDIC's Public Information Center (877-275-3342 or 703-562-2200). PR-46-2013

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tw telecom is prime acquisition target, says Corvex's Meister

May 8, 2013 | By Sean Buckley


tw telecom's (Nasdaq: TWTC) shares jumped 7.2 percent to $29.12 on Wednesday afternoon after being cited by Keith Meister, founder and managing partner of New York-based Corvex, as a prime acquisition target.

Meister said during the Sohn Investment Conference in New York that Level 3 Communications (NYSE: LVLT), Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) or Verizon (NYSE: VZ) could be prime suitors for tw telecom, which has established itself as one of the largest domestic Ethernet and VPN service players.

"There are lots of people who at the right time would want to buy this company," Meister said.

During the session, tw telecom's stock rose to $29.24, its highest rise since August 2011. Meanwhile, Level 3 rose nearly 6.7 percent to $24.76.

tw telecom has been a continually profitable CLEC, particularly in selling Ethernet and VPN services to businesses. In Q1 2013, tw telecom reported that strong Ethernet and VPN product sales drove up data and Internet services revenue 14.3 percent, or $25 million, year-over-year to $202 million.
This is not the first time that the subject of tw telecom being an acquisition target has come up.

Last fall, rumor emerged that CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL) was interested in purchasing tw telecom. These rumors emerged after an article in The Denver Post cited a report in DealReporter where unnamed sources said the two service providers had been talking about a deal for a number of weeks.
At that time, Level 3 also expressed interest in the service provider, but did not agree on how much tw telecom thought its business was worth.

Week in research: Data centers play it safe; Ethernet switch market set for turbulence

May 3, 2013 | By Samantha Bookman

Data center operators stick to the safe road: Fibre Channel is still the technology of choice for data center operators, despite the emergence of Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), an Infonetics Research report says. It's indicative of a trend among operators to remain more conservative with their data center deployments, according to Michael Howard, principal analyst for carrier networks. For example, server virtualization is still used only for select applications. "Server virtualization has been the focus of the data center industry for several years now, and the largest data center owners and internet content providers like Google are ubiquitously exploiting virtual machines," he said. "Yet the reality is the bulk of data center owners are more pedestrian in their deployments, finding it more operationally convenient to leave many areas of their data centers alone, using server virtualization for only select applications."

Future-proof fiber: From the department of glaringly obvious things, a new study conducted for Telecompaper by XSInsight confirmed that fiber to the home (FTTH) is the most future-proof fixed-access technology. However, DSL and coax--augmented by DOCSIS 3.0 technology--will be able to fulfill bandwidth demands in many of the ten markets the study focused on. It said that "required bandwidth (at actual speeds) varies from 20/1 Mbps for a basic one person household to 70/4 Mbps for a high-end, five-person household through 2016," according to the Telecompaper article (sub req.).

Ethernet switch evolution: A Dell'Oro report said the Ethernet switch market now exceeds $20 billion, but as end user preferences change, this segment is undergoing "dramatic changes." More end users prefer purpose-built devices that are optimized according to their deployment location. And those locations are stratified into four areas: data center, enterprise, SMB (small and medium-sized business) and Carrier Ethernet services. "Data center consolidation projects and an increase in cloud services are causing the data center segment to significantly outperform the overall Ethernet switch market. This trend is causing vendors focused in the data center to gain overall market share compared to those focused in other segments," said Alan Weckel, Vice President at Dell'Oro Group. "At the same time, the increase in mobile devices is causing many enterprises and SMBs to invest more heavily in WLAN." The changes haven't yet had a negative effect on the segment, but Ethernet switches may be in for a bumpy ride as the enterprise and SMB segments are expected to plateau and decline over the next few years.

EarthLink business services focus helps beat analyst expectations with $320 million in revenue

May 3, 2013 | By Sean Buckley

EarthLink's (Nasdaq: ELNK) movement into the business market was evident in the first quarter of 2013 as the CLEC's business services focus helped it hold revenue at $320 million.

Although down from $331.6 million Q4 2012 and $344.4 million in Q1 2012, EarthLink beat analyst revenue expectations of $317.7 million.

Business services, which make up 77 percent of its overall revenue mix, declined only 0.8 percent to $247.8 million.

During the quarter, EarthLink's retail growth business, including MPLS, hosted VoIP and IT services, reached an approximate $148 million annualized revenue run rate in the first quarter of 2013, reflecting a 21 percent year-over year organic growth rate.

Overall growth product revenues, including wholesale, reached an approximate $300 million annualized revenue run rate. The CLEC also reported that net recurring sales bookings were up 14 percent sequentially in Q1 and 5 percent from Q1 2012. Growth products made up 65 percent of new sales bookings up from 40 percent in the same period a year ago.

A key foundation for growth in Q1 came with the opening a number of new data centers and the completion of unique fiber network routes.

At the end of last month, EarthLink completed four new data centers in Chicago, Dallas, Rochester and San Jose, with one more on track for completion.
"These facilities are up and running, and our facility in Miami is in final system turn up and testing," said Rolla Huff, Chairman and CEO of EarthLink, during the Q1 earnings call. "It will be coming online in the next month or so."

On the fiber expansion side, EarthLink has lit routes from Memphis to Chicago, Ashburn to New York and express routes from Atlanta to Miami, and Ashburn to Birmingham.

Huff said that they "have a few projects remaining with completion dates expected in the second half of the year, but approximately 70 percent of the fiber expansion was complete at the end of Q1."

In tandem with the opening of its new data centers and building of new fiber routes, EarthLink also introduced a Cloud Disaster Recovery service, which stores a business customer's data assets in its data centers. As a flexible service, customers will be allowed to purchase only the amount of storage needed to replicate their primary IT environment.

Looking forward, EarthLink increased revenue and adjusted EBITDA guidance for the full year 2013. Company management has forecast revenue of $1.25 to $1.26 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $214 million to $227 million for the full year 2013.

Shares of EarthLink on Thursday closed at $5.75 on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

Google Fiber takes on AT&T, Verizon in Shawnee, Kan.

May 3, 2013 | By Sean Buckley

Google Fiber (Nasdaq: GOOG) on Thursday said that it is extending its fiber to the home (FTTH) service into Shawnee, Kan., where it will take on established telcos AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ).

The Internet giant has recently been on an active streak of network expansions. Google announced in April that it would bring the service to Austin, Texas and, no less than two weeks later, to Provo, Utah.

Similar to these network expansions, Google Fiber will offer speeds that will far surpass what residents can get from AT&T and Verizon, both of which currently offer speeds on their DSL networks between 10-25 Mbps.

Although Shawnee is located southwest of Kansas City, which will make for an easier extension plan, the service provider has not given a timeline of when the service will be available.

Rachel Hack, community manager for Google Fiber, said in a blog post that they have a "lot of planning and engineering work to do before we're ready to bring Fiber to Shawnee."

Google said that the debut of its fiber service fits in well with Shawnee's mentality of using technology to help support residents and businesses.  

"We've also been impressed by Shawnee's vision to keep their citizens informed and involved using the Internet," wrote Hack. "Recently, the City modernized their website, so that locals can easily access city info--from crime maps to fiscal reports to streamed audio of city council meetings."

After city officials voted to approve the service provider's move to bring their service to the city, Google and the city announced the news together.   

"The ultra-high speed Google fiber network will enhance the quality of life for people in Shawnee by providing faster access to essential digital resources," said Shawnee's Mayor Jeff Meyers in a release announcing the new agreement. "This will grow and strengthen Shawnee's competitive advantage in the years to come."

While it's still unclear how broad Google Fiber is going to go with its FTTH plans, it is prompting two of the top telcos--AT&T and CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL)--to reveal their own 1 Gbps plans.

CenturyLink announced this week that it would begin a 1 Gbps FTTH pilot deployment in Omaha, while AT&T earlier in the month revealed its plans for a similar network in Austin.

FTC Settlement Bars Seller of Prepaid Calling Cards from Deceptive Marketing

Cards Tested by the FTC Averaged Just 40 Percent of Minutes Advertised

A company that allegedly misrepresented the minutes provided by its pre-paid calling cards will be barred from making such deceptive claims under a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission.
According to the FTC’s complaint, filed in May 2012, DR Phone Communications markets and sells prepaid calling cards.  The cards are often sold in grocery and convenience stores, and at kiosks in other retail establishments.  The cards are especially popular with members of immigrant communities, many of whom depend on prepaid cards to stay in touch with family overseas
Since at least September 2010, the complaint states, the calling minutes actually delivered to consumers who bought the defendants’ prepaid cards were substantially less than promised in their marketing, advertising, and promotions.  The FTC bought samples of the defendants’ cards in September 2010 and November 2011, and of the 169 card tested, all failed to deliver the number of minutes prominently advertised on their point-of-sale posters. In all, the defendants' cards delivered on average only 40 percent of the minutes promised, with 52 cards delivering less than 25 percent of the minutes advertised, and 25 cards delivering less than five percent of the minutes advertised.
Based on these results, the Commission charged the defendants with violating the FTC Act by misrepresenting the number of calling minutes the cards would provide, and failing to disclose adequately fees that would reduce the cards’ value, and in turn the number of calling minutes they provide.
The court order settling the FTC’s charges permanently bars the defendants from making any material misrepresentations in connection with the marketing and sale of prepaid calling cards, including those about the number of minutes delivered and per-minute rates.  It also requires the defendants to clearly and prominently disclose all material limitations of their prepaid calling cards, including:

• The existence of all fees and when they will apply;
• That the advertised calling minutes are available only on a single call, if applicable;
• Any limit on the time during which the advertised rates or number of minutes are available; and
• When the calling card expires, if it does.

In addition, the proposed order requires the defendants to put procedures into place for five years to ensure the accuracy of their marketing materials and to prevent retailers from displaying expired marketing materials.  They also are required to end their relationships with any distributor who doesn’t display accurate marketing materials.
Finally, the proposed order imposes a judgment of $61,597, representing the total amount consumers lost using the cards between September 2010 and June 2012.
The FTC has information for consumers interested in purchasing pre-paid phone cards.
The Commission vote approving the filing of the consent order was 4-0.  It was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on April 22, 2013, and entered by the Court on April 24, 2013.  The order announced today settles the FTC’s charges against DR Phone Communications, Inc., also doing business as DRphonecom.com; and David Rosenthal, individually and as an officer of DR Phone Communications, Inc.
The Federal Trade Commission works for consumers to prevent fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices and to provide information to help spot, stop, and avoid them. To file a complaint in English or Spanish, visit the FTC's online Complaint Assistant or call 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357). The FTC enters complaints into Consumer Sentinel, a secure, online database available to more than 2,000 civil and criminal law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad. The FTC’s website provides free information on a variety of consumer topics.  Like the FTC on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to press releases for the latest FTC news and resources.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Mitchell J. Katz,
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STAFF CONTACT:

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FTC Northwest Region
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Related Items:

Federal Trade Commission, Plaintiff v. DR Phone Communications, Inc., also doing business as DR Phone Communications Company, Inc., Phone Communications, Inc., and DRphonecom.com, and David Rosenthal, Defendants
(United States District Court for the Northern District of California)
Case No. C-12-2631-SC
FTC File Nos. 112 3073 and X120029

Dish declined Sprint merger talks months before trying to outbid SoftBank

May 1, 2013, 9:55pm MDT

Greg Avery

Reporter- Denver Business Journal

Dish Network's Charlie Ergen and SoftBank's Masayoshi Son have trashed each other in public the last two days over their competing multibillion-dollar bids to buy Sprint Nextel Corp.

Son, Tokyo-based SoftBank Corp's founder, on Tuesday called Dish Network's $25.5 billion merger idea "big-mouthing" and said Dish's offer is less valuable and too debt heavy to best SoftBank’s $20.1 billion bid.

The same day, Dish Network Corp.(Nasdaq: DISH) indirectly bad-mouthed Sonin a filing to the Federal Communications Commission, pointing out allegations of corruption years ago at a SoftBank-related Chinese company. SoftBank denounced the Dish filing in its own letter to the FCC.

Ergen then told USA Today on Wednesday that having foreign ownership of Sprint would be inferior to having Sprint bought by Douglas County-based Dish, and having its English-speaking employees helping the wireless carrier's customers.

Adding to the surprises, there's this: Long before the war of words broke out, it seems the Overland Park, Kan.-based Sprint (NYSE: S) talked with Dish about a merger – a few days after receiving the $20.1 billion offer from SoftBank.

That’s right, Sprint broached the idea of a merger with Dish last September. And Dish wasn't interested.

That tidbit's buried in a couple sentences of Sprint’s proxy filed Wednesday for the SoftBank deal. It’s a surprise given the public battles between Dish and Sprint (and now SoftBank, too) that have gone on for months.

Outside the public eye, it seems Dish and Sprint could explore partnerships. Though not successfully.

During five months starting in April last year – before SoftBank approached Sprint about deals – Dish and Sprint discussed network partnerships even as they clashed over regulatory approval and standards for Dish Network’s newly acquired wireless spectrum.

Then, on Sept. 28, days after SoftBank made its offer, Sprint’s head of mergers and acquisitions, Keith Cowan, revealed he had talked with Dish CEO Joe Clayton about the idea of a Dish-Sprint merger.

Clayton replied that Dish was too focused on regulatory matters at the time, plus he considered Sprint’s market price inflated compared to Sprint’s “fundamental value,” the Sprint proxy filing said

What would’ve happened had Clayton responded differently? Probably, not much. By then, Cowan was on his way out at Sprint. He left the company shortly afterward.

And Dish already had its eye on other deals.

Dish made an unsuccessful $4 billion bid to buy MetroPCS in August, though that wasn’t publicly known until months later. At the same time, Ergen offered Bellevue, Wash-based Clearwire Corp. $2.2 billion for some of Clearwire’s spectrum, and to get an option to buy 45 percent of Clearwire for another $1 billion.

But, Ergen wasn’t willing to bid for Clearwire shares until after the FCC approved Dish using its new spectrum for wireless broadband, Clearwire’s proxy said. That approval didn’t come until December.

By then Sprint and SoftBank decided to do their deal, and Sprint had reached agreement to buy the half of Clearwire it doesn’t already own.

Dish Network is left fighting to break one or both of those deals apart.

Clearwire shareholders are scheduled vote on Sprint’s offer May 21. Sprint has scheduled its vote on SoftBank’s offer for June 12.

A special committee of Sprint directors is reviewing Dish Network’s offer. It's expected to announce before the shareholder vote whether or not Dish’s offer could be considered superior to SoftBank’s.

Greg Avery covers tech, telecom, aerospace and bioscience for the Denver Business Journal and writes for the "Boosters, Bits & Bioscience" blog. Phone: 303-803-9222.

Windstream voice outages mostly resolved; technology upgrade blamed

May 2, 2013 | By Sean Buckley

Windstream (Nasdaq: WIN) reported Wednesday evening that the majority of the network outages that left business customers across as many as 23 states without voice service have been fixed, though isolated issues remain.

The telco said on its support page that while "There may still be some isolated issues our team is working aggressively to remedy."

The outage was due to a technology upgrade on various parts of its long-distance network, the carrier said. It did not reveal the voice vendor that performed the upgrade.

"Unfortunately, after the new technology was subjected to mass volume, this newly upgraded system began performing erratically," Windstream said on its support site. "We have subsequently reverted to the prior configuration."
Reports of trouble on the network began to emerge on Monday, when the telco was already dealing with a Sunday afternoon switch failure that interrupted service to about 30,000 local business and residential lines in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and surrounding areas in South Florida.

Business users in other regions, from Georgia to Missouri, commented on FierceTelecom as well as on Windstream's Facebook page that they were seeing issues with their voice services, and that hold times for the carrier's customer support were at least an hour. Windstream confirmed that in addition to long-distance and toll-free voice services, the outage affected its ability to receive inbound calls to its support centers.

Seven Steps to Clean-Up Your Online Reputation

Posted April 25, 2013

Do you remember the story of Florida pizza shop owner,Scott Van Duzer, who hugged President Obama during a campaign stop in 2012?

The President stopped by Van Duzer’s restaurant to recognize him for his efforts in helping provide blood to patients in his county. What Van Duzer didn’t expect was the big bear hug he gave the President to make national news…and bring out the trolls on his company’s Yelp page.

People from across the country began leaving negative reviews on the page, even if they’d never actually eaten in the restaurant. One reviewer wrote, “Most of y’all Democrats can’t afford to eat at this restaurant anyway. They don’t accept food stamps.”

Hundreds of anti-Obama reviewers flooded the page to criticize Van Duzer, his restaurant, and his political beliefs.

In working with Yelp, Van Duzer was able to have some of the comments removed because they violated the site’s content guidelines, yet many remained. But then something magical happened: Van Duzer’s loyal customers came to the rescue! They began leaving five star reviews, having actually eaten in the restaurant, and the negative and untrue reviews were pushed further and further down.

Clean-Up Your Online Reputation

If you have some unsavory things hurting you online – and you don’t have a community to come to your rescue – you can clean-up your online reputation with some elbow grease and a good strategy in place.

The process goes a little something like this.

1. Conduct an online audit. Likely you already know what’s there, but it doesn’t hurt to do a Google search, see what is being said, and where it lands in search results (second listing, first page). Do this both logged into your Google account and logged out (or you can open an incognito tab in your browser without having to actually log out by going to file > new incognito window). Logged in will let you see the results your friends, colleagues, peers, and clients will see. The incognito search will show you what the rest of the world sees. It’s important to have both. Search Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Search the social networks. Search the review sites. Search the Better Business Bureau and Ripoff Report. Search employee sites such as Glassdoor. Use terms such as “I hate COMPANY NAME” or “COMPANY NAME sucks.”
2. Create a strategy. Based on what you learn from the audit and what internal and external implementation resources are in place, put together the company’s online strategy … and make sure it’s tied to your goals. The very first thing you should do (if you haven’t already) is set up Talkwalker alerts to let you know when someone says something about you online – positive, neutral, or negative.
3. Create a clean-up list. With the audit complete and your online strategy in place, now comes the clean-up. In some cases, there will be multiple accounts for your organization. There might be profiles you don’t need on social networks that are either defunct or they don’t help your strategy. There might be negative reviews or blog posts on the first page of search results you’d like to address and not have come up before your own sites and the positive reviews. Maybe there are “I hate Company X” groups on Facebook or untrue reviews on Yelp or TripAdvisor. Perhaps former employees have said really terrible things about you on Glassdoor or they’ve set up social networks for the company and you don’t have the login information. Whatever it happens to be, the list begins with these types of things. Write down everything you need cleaned up so the person or team responsible understands what it is you want done.
4. Assign someone (or a team) to do the work. They will need usernames and passwords, branding guidelines, sign-off on copy/images, and the power to make changes without a laborious approval process. It’s not critical this person be in marketing or PR, as long as it’s someone who understands what you’re trying to accomplish and can get the work done and update you in a timely manner.
5. Begin the clean-up. Some of this is a big pain in the rear because you’ll need to work with the customer service departments at the social networks to either reset login data, delete a profile, or take down an untrue review. This could take weeks. We have a client who had an employee who was very social media savvy. He set up the company on all of the social networks and then quit his job, taking the login information with him. Working with LinkedIn, in particular, took about five weeks to reset the password and give us additional administrator access. In some cases, such as on the review sites, you have to prove the review is untrue, sometimes with legal action.
6. Build your online presence through social media. There is one social network every organization should be on: Google+. Not only does Google rank you higher if you use their social network to promote your content, it helps to push down the negative content if it has been shared on Google+. You don’t have to be “social” on the site, but please use it to promote your content.
7. Content is king…or at least prince. There are going to be many of you who have negative reviews that are, unfortunately, true. There are many organizations who claim they will clean up your online reputation for $40 per month, deleting all of the negative reviews from search results.This is illegal. Not illegal from the “I’ll be arrested and spend time in jail” point-of-view, but from a “It’s impossible to delete things on a site where you are not an administrator” perspective. Good, valuable content that is shared is the only way to push some the negative results.
8. Implement the strategy. Once you’ve cleaned up the organization’s online presence and figured out how you’re going to use content to build a strong reputation, it’s time to put your strategy into action. This is the scary part. You’re about to become transparent. The curtain has been pulled back now and the only way to participate in the conversation is by being transparent, which means you’re opening yourself up to criticism and feedback.

Once you’ve decided to be transparent, honest, authentic, and human in your online conversations, the content, brand ambassadors, influencer marketing, customer reviews, and a solid product or service will help you cross the marathon finish line.

Warren Buffet famously said, “If you lose money for the firm, I will be understanding. If you lose reputation, I will be ruthless.”

An organization’s reputation, today, is only as good as its search results. If your operations are solid, you have a responsive customer service team, and you run things ethically, the rest will sort itself out.

New York Subway Stations With Wireless Service Climb to 36

By Michelle Maisto  |  Posted 2013-04-26

New York City's subway system is no longer a wireless dead zone in a highly connected city. The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), which runs the system, and Transit Wireless, a neutral party created to host the networks of multiple carriers, announced April 25 that 36 of the most highly trafficked stations in Manhattan now offer wireless service from T-Mobile and AT&T, as well as WiFi service from Boingo Wireless. During a press conference inside the 42nd Street station, representatives from Verizon Wireless and Sprint announced they were finalizing agreements to also participate in the effort. The April addition of 30 new stations to six that went live in September 2011 marks the end of Phase 1 in a seven-phase plan. Phase 2, already under way, includes an additional 40 stations, with Grand Central Station among them. The entire project, covering 277 stations, is expected to be complete by 2017 at a cost of $200 million to $250 million, which the carriers and Transit Wireless will cover. The service will offer enhanced communications to MTA employees and first responders in an emergency, while the 1.6 billion people who ride the subway annually will be able to place calls, text and email, listen to music, stream video, play games and more easily figure out how to get from here to there.