Every evening, when New York's Bronx Library Center closes at 9, a group of young people carrying mobile phones clusters outside its entrance on a busy commercial street. They are there to access the Internet through a wireless signal leaking from inside.
In a borough where 30 percent live in poverty, many Bronx residents can't afford a data plan for their phones. At home, they often don't have broadband connection to the Internet or even a computer. If Mayor Bill de Blasio has his way, by next year New Yorkers will be able to use their handsets to go online through a network that will replace the city's once-ubiquitous sidewalk payphones with free Wi-Fi hot spots.
De Blasio, 53, the first Democrat to run the biggest U.S. city in 20 years, assumed office Jan. 1 vowing to devote his mayoralty to economic justice. That agenda includes efforts to close the so-called digital divide separating those with high-speed Internet access from those without it. A request for proposals on how to build a citywide Wi-Fi system closed July 21, with a provider to be chosen by year-end.
"If we're going to create fairness and economic opportunity, high-speed Internet -- affordable high-speed Internet -- has to be available to all of our citizens," de Blasio said at last month's meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Dallas. "We have to make sure the Internet access is truly universal."
About 60 U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, Chicago and Boston, have joined New York in planning to install citywide free outdoor Wi-Fi. Even so, the U.S. lags behind other countries in high-speed Internet access, according to the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute. The group, which ranked the cost of consumer broadband service in 22 cities worldwide, found that Americans in major cities pay higher prices for slower Internet service than their global counterparts.
New York's plan calls for 10,000 stations emitting signals in a radius of a least 85 feet throughout the most heavily trafficked residential and commercial corridors in the five boroughs.
Google Inc., operator of the world's biggest search engine, was among more than 50 technology companies that attended an informational meeting for the project in May. Arranged by the city Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, the session also included representatives of Cisco Systems Inc., International Business Machines Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co.
According to the request for proposals, the provider chosen by the city can charge for phone service, except for 911 emergency and 311 hotline calls, though it can't require a fee for Internet access.
The Wi-Fi stations also may feature pay-per-use smartphones, electric outlets to charge mobile devices and cars, street cameras and sensors to monitor air quality and other environmental conditions, according Ray Mastroianni, chief executive officer of Queens-based Telebeam, which operates 900 city pay phones and is competing to win the right to operate the new system.
The idea of converting the phones to Wi-Fi pods began in 2012 with about 25 spots under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.
The kiosks would add to a patchwork of publicly and privately funded projects providing Wi-Fi to city neighborhoods, including in about 70 parks and a 95-block swath of Harlem that's about to become the largest continuous hot spot in the city. The program is financed partly with a private philanthropic grant.
In addition, the Housing Authority operates a fleet of mobile "digital vans" offering free Wi-Fi, laptops, printers and computer-literacy classes to some public-housing developments.
De Blasio wants a task force to review all Wi-Fi coverage. He's also vetting candidates for a newly created chief technology officer who would coordinate Internet policy.
"He has elevated the issue to the highest level in an effort to close the digital divide," said Commissioner Ann Roest of the technology department.
Business on 07/28/2014