Wireless broadband and wireless phone functionality now serve Yonkers and Mount Vernon, N.Y., thanks to the distributed antenna system (DAS) the cities partnered with vendor MetroPCS to deploy. The DAS spans the two cities via 90 miles of fiber and offers coverage to more than a quarter of a million residents.

A DAS is a network of antennas attached to telephone poles and connected through fiber strung along the telephone poles. Yonkers and Mount Vernon opted for a DAS rather than cell towers because a DAS required less bureaucracy for approval. Cell tower approvals typically take two years to pass through local regulators with no guarantee of approval, according to Laura Altschul, vice president of strategic partnerships and network policy for ExteNet Systems Inc. MetroPCS hired ExteNet to deploy the DAS. Altschul said DAS networks, by contrast, usually required less than a year for approval.

"There are a lot of residential neighborhoods in Mount Vernon and Yonkers, and communities are resistant to seeing towers going up," Altschul explained. The beauty of a DAS network is we use existing infrastructure. You go up on the utility poles and string your fiber. It doesn't look any different than what people already are accustomed to seeing in their neighborhoods." She said a DAS offers no difference in signal strength, compared to cell towers.

The DAS required only 60 days for completion after approval from regulators in both cites. ExteNet claims the Yonkers/Mount Vernon DAS is the largest in the United States.