By Ken Sakamoto, Star-Bulletin
These poles eventually will allow cellular phones
to work in the Likelike tunnel.
There's a good reason it's called the Leaky-Leaky tunnel, but the Koolau passageway does stop one thing cold -- microwaves. You're tooling over the mountains in your BMW, closing a deal on the cell-phone, and suddenly -- pffft! -- it goes dead while you're in the tunnel. Pondering Likelike
tunnel polesThis is how bull markets go bear.
Which bring us to an array of apparatus recently added to the Honolulu side of the Likelike tunnel entrance, flanked by a stairway locked inside a cage and everything painted the shade of bilious green a child's tongue achieves while sucking lime shave-ice.
The apparatus is a team-up among four wireless phone companies -- PrimeCo, VoiceStream, Pocket Communications and Hawaiian Wireless -- who pooled money and design for the units. "I assume they got a permit of some sort," said Ross Smith of the Department of Transportation. "You don't build stuff like that without lots of approvals."
According to marketing manager Myra Rabanal of PrimeCo, the deal was a "co-location" or "master" agreement with DOT, and the entire thing was paid for by the four companies. At this point, the sites are being tested and aren't operational yet.
"If other companies want to participate in the future to enhance coverage in that area, they can do so with (DOT) approval," she said.
The good news: The not-of-this-Earth hue is a primer, and has already started to be painted over with Pali-appropriate colors.
In the meantime, the thing to do in the tunnel is toot your horn, and then look around pretending to see who actually did it.
Burl Burlingame, Star-Bulletin.