Comptroller Stringer Raises Equality Concerns Over New York City’s Plan for Wi-Fi Hot Spots

The proposal appears uncontroversial: replace New York City’s moldering pay phones -- known in 2014 as sidewalk-eating obstacles or, at best, rain shelters -- with thousands of Wi-Fi hot spots across the five boroughs. But the plan became the latest entry in the fraught relationship between Mayor Bill de Blasio and Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller.

After Mayor de Blasio’s administration presented its finalized plan, arguing that it would help “close the digital divide,” Comptroller Stringer suggested the project might in fact perpetuate it by providing faster Wi-Fi speed in some neighborhoods. He said that according to the agreement with CityBridge, a consortium of companies including Qualcomm and Titan, Manhattan would have none of the lower-speed Wi-Fi by the eighth year of the contract. But at that same point, more than 40 percent of Brooklyn and Bronx kiosks -- and more than 90 percent on Staten Island -- would have the slower speed, he said. The difference, the comptroller’s office said, owed to a business model “that puts advertising dollars ahead of people,” with faster speeds in more affluent areas that will attract ads to the kiosks.