Public High-Speed Internet Access? It’s Coming!

Home Brooklyn Life Public High-Speed Internet Access? It’s Coming!
Public High-Speed Internet Access? It’s Coming!

By a unanimous motion on December 10,  the NYC Franchise and Concession Review Committee passed Mayor de Blasio’s plan to bring high-speed public Wi-Fi to the city. LinkNYC, as the program is called, is what Comptroller Scott Stringer referred to as an “Internet of the future.” Its futuristic kiosks, to be installed all around the city, boast free telephone calling capabilities within the United States, a tactile keypad and braille lettering, a dedicated 911 button, and a USB charging port. In addition, the kiosks will supply free Wi-Fi—with speeds ranging from 1 gigabytes/second to 100 megabytes/second.

And now, since the plan has been adjusted to address the unequal distribution of Internet access throughout the city, that access should be more evenly spread around—including to Brooklyn, which lags behind four of the five boroughs in that department.

At the meeting, a statement from Comptroller Stringer’s office said, “The digital divide is real in this city and opportunities to try and close that gap must be seized whenever they arise.” And real it is. Last week, the Comptroller’s office released a report laying down the disparity between Internet broadband access in households of New York City. (As per the Federal Communications Commission, speeds of 4 megabytes/second or more qualify as broadband.) According to data from the American Community Survey, The Bronx lags behind more than all of New York City’s boroughs when it comes to broadband access. Some 35% of the households in the borough don’t have access to broadband.

This is followed by Brooklyn, where 30% of the households don’t have access to broadband Internet. In contrast Queens, Manhattan, and Staten Island have their figures at 25%, 20%, and 22% respectively.

When ranked according to Community districts, the story is harsher for a few neighborhoods in Brooklyn. With 47 percent of households lacking access, Community District 12—consisting of Borough Park, Kensington, and Ocean Parkway—has the lowest access in all of New York City. Out of the five community districts that have the lowest access in the city, four districts belong to Brooklyn.

Community District Name Percentage with internet broadband access
Brooklyn Community District 12—Borough Park, Kensington, & Ocean Parkway 53.1
Brooklyn Community District 13—Brighton Beach & Coney Island 58.1
Bronx Community District 3 & 6—Belmont, Crotona Park East, & East Tremont 60.1
Brooklyn Community District 16—Brownsville & Ocean Hill 60.5
Brooklyn Community District 3—Bedford-Stuyvesant 61.3

With LinkNYC, Brooklyn will soon boast 583 kiosks (73 more than what was promised in the city’s previous announcement, before the adjustment) that will offer 1 Gigabyte of Internet speed in a 150-ft. radius. With that speed, A person should be able to download a Blu Ray movie in less than ten seconds. These kiosks are expected to be set up in the first four years of the program.

By the end of the eighth year, the borough will in total have 1,346 kiosks, split between those that offer 1 gigabyte of speed per second and those that have the relatively slower 100 mbps speed to offer. After receiving criticism from the Comptroller and the borough presidents, the mayor’s office revised the LinkNYC proposal to so that this decision—which kiosks get high-speed— is no longer determined by advertising. The decision will instead be made on the basis of the technology available in that particular area.

For instance, for the first four years, Staten Island is obligated to receive only 33 high-speed kiosks. Around 150 kiosks in the borough can be of lower speed. This limitation exists mainly because of the lack of high-transmission fiber cable in the area—something the team is providing through its network in the subways. Because of the absence of subways in Staten Island, the fiber cable also is hard to lay out in the area.

It is unclear to what extent existing payphone kiosks will relate to the final number of LinkNYC kiosks, or where they are placed. Though not limited by the location of current pay phones, the new kiosks will be replacing a few of those machines. So far it is unclear how evenly these kiosks will be distributed across neighborhoods in the borough. If it is reflected by the number of current payphones in the area, then certain underserved areas such as community district 12 might receive lower Links as well—which might be unfortunate, since the area is one of the lowest when it comes to broadband access. However, Staten Island , which has only 51 payphone locations at present, will be home to 183 LinkNYC kiosks in the next four years. Hence, it might not be that dependent on payphone locations after all.

After the announcement, a representative of the Brooklyn Borough President, Eric Adams, said, “While we have much more work to do to close the digital divide, this public Wi-Fi program is an ambitious first step in achieving that goal and I commend that.” He also mentioned public participation in deciding the site locations. “Before approving any sites, Borough Presidents, Council members, Community Boards, and the public at large will be able to view these proposed locations and provide comments to DOiTT, which will ensure fair representation and placement of these kiosks,” he added.

The project is being led by CityBridge, a consortium of Titan, Comark, Control Group, and Qualcomm. Titan already owns around 80 percent of the city’s public pay phones, and Qualcomm, a company with expertise in semi-conductors for technology devices, will act as an advisor. Comark and Control Group will together work on the hardware and the user experience of the Links.

In addition, the project also involves Transit Wireless and Antenna Design. Transit Wireless has already been working to spreading a fiber cable network in the city’s subway system. The same high-speed optic cable will also contribute to several parts of the LinkNYC project.  Antenna Design, meanwhile, is working on the physical design of the kiosk.

As reported by The Brooklyn Ink earlier, public Wi-Fi has been in the borough for a while, but the current system has its limitations. Moreover the speed that those existing hotspots offer is one-tenth of the lower speed LinkNYC kiosks and one-hundredth of the high-speed LinkNYC structures. For a borough that lags behind in broadband access, Brooklyn might be finally getting its due.

As the Mayor’s office representative said during the vote at the public meeting, “At last? Yes!”

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