New York City Starts Turning Pay Phones Into Wi-Fi Hotspots

Officials almost missed a deadline of 2015, but New York City has met its estimated timeline for deploying the first access points for its new LinkNYC network, which will give New Yorkers free Wi-Fi in addition to USB charging ports, touch-screen Internet access and, of course, digital advertising.

Last November, when the LinkNYC plan was first announced, it was expected that the first such access points would begin to replace public pay phones by the end of this year. However, don't expect all sorts of access points to just start popping up at a frenzied pace. The contractor that New York City is working with, CityBridge, has a 12-year timeline to install a minimum of 7,500 access points around New York's five boroughs.

Of course, other milestones are built into the city's contract with CityBridge as well. After a year and 120 days, CityBridge must have 510 of these access points built and installed—the specific requirements for each borough vary, Gigaom explained earlier this year. After four years, CityBridge needs to hit 4,500 access points. And if CityBridge doesn't get it all done by the final timelines, it'll face fines for missing the mark.

However, it's expected that CityBridge will actually go above and beyond the 7,500 minimum, as many of these kiosks will be supported by advertising. Presumably, the more kiosks that go up, the more advertising money CityBridge makes on top of whatever it costs to keep them maintained and the Wi-Fi network operational.

The first LinkNYC access points might be going into the ground right now, but they aren't operational. According to The Verge, it should take up to two weeks or so to test them out, but it might take less time depending on each access point.

And don't expect to have the promised gigabit Wi-Fi Internet speeds at each hub. First, there isn't a wireless device you can use to even connect to a hub at those speeds. Second, the hubs will have different speeds depending on their location: Faster hubs tend to be located around Manhattan, and a mix of gigabit and slower hubs can be found everywhere else.

"We're expanding the infrastructure into communities that have not had enough (Wi-Fi) availability. It's a good incremental step. No, it's not everything, but we're going to get more," said Maya Wiley, counsel to mayor Bill de Blasio, in an interview with the New York Daily News last year.

If you're curious about the coverage in your neighborhood, the blog I Quant NY has a good visualization of every single location of a current pay phone in the five boroughs combined with a little 150-foot bubble surrounding each one (the access points's estimated Wi-Fi radius).