Say goodbye to New York City’s payphones as they get replaced with modern-looking Wi-Fi kiosks.
LinkNYC, a product of CityBridge technology consortium, is rolling out a fiber optic network of kiosks that offer an array of free services including high speed Internet, web browsing, cell phone charging and phone calls to anywhere in the U.S.
“It’s going to be the largest and fastest public Wi-Fi network in the world,” Collin Odonell, managing member of CityBridge, said in a press briefing. “It’s really the first of this kind of network and it’s going to transform the streets and people’s way to access information.”
The $200 million project is expected to bring in $500 million for the city and it won’t cost taxpayers any money.
Some of the selected areas to have Links by July include downtown and northern Manhattan, south Bronx, Jamaica, Queens, Flatbush Ave., Brooklyn and St. George, Staten Island.
The first two kiosks, which are called “Links” and stand a bit over at 9 feet tall, will be unveiled Tuesday on 3rd Ave. at 15th and 17th street, but they won’t be fully functional until mid-January.
Each kiosk will offer up to 1,000 Mbps Internet speeds, which is much higher than the 8.7 Mbps average speed of public Wi-Fi services in the U.S. It’s also much faster than the average LTE speed, which falls at 6.5 Mbps. The gigabit kiosks will also be able to support hundreds of users using its Wi-Fi up to a 400 foot radius.
Privacy might be a concern for many, but the Links will have features that keep users secured.
Users will have the option to join a private network that is encrypted and won’t track them while they browse. Users will also have the option to clear their sessions once they’re done using the kiosk. Yet, it’s still recommended not to log into banks accounts over public networks.
LinkNYC will track usual technical network information such as MAC addresses and other small identifiable information.
That might concern some people with being tracked, but CityBridge’s commitment to net neutrality guarantees that users’ information will remain private and won’t be shared with any third party.
The only exception would be if the information is part of a criminal investigation and it’s summoned by law enforcement. CityBridge has already put together a Privacy Policy that details what the company does with users’ personally identifiable information.
