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Comedian Louis CK once recalled an airline’s brand-new Wi-Fi going out of service, mid-flight, and the guy next to him reacting in very Torontonian fashion: “This is bullsh-t!” CK marvelled at “how quickly the world owes him something he knew existed only ten seconds ago.”

I don’t want to be that guy. So I asked BAI Canada, which operates the subway wireless systems in Toronto, New York and Hong Kong, for a tour.

“I’ve been building or designing or managing networks forever. My neighbours never cared about anything I did before until I got involved in this project,” said Ken Ranger, the company’s chief executive officer, as we emerged from Bloor-Yonge station. “Now everybody has an opinion.”

As I’m not currently trying to send an email before the platform runs out, my opinion is that the system is pretty neat.

The network as it stands — 27 stations online, 60,000 log-ons a day and 175 kilometres of cable laid through the tunnels — all runs from a “base station hotel” in the bowels of the Yonge-Bloor office building BAI calls home, and from a 15-person office on the fourth floor.

The “hotel” is basically a small room full of servers and batteries that act as a massive router — and not just for the Internet. Wind Mobile’s cellular signals cascade into a room next door, then plug straight into BAI’s network. Other adjacent rooms are available for any other carriers that want to plug in as well. (Wind’s exclusive subway cellular deal expires in June.)