Linda Huber
Is New York City’s Public Wi-Fi Actually Connecting the Poor?
LinkNYC, New York City's newest communications network, includes more than 350 kiosks installed on sidewalks throughout the city and was created to repurpose payphone infrastructure through public kiosks offering free Internet, phone calls, and USB charging ports. The project is a collaboration between the city and a consortium of private technology and media companies including Sidewalk Labs, an Alphabet (read: Google) company, and represents an important innovation in the “smart city” movement integrating information and communication technologies into all aspects of urban life.
I spent nearly four hours of an August afternoon walking down 3rd Avenue—where Links now appear on almost every block—to see what it actually looks like we put our newest and most innovative technology out onto city streets, instead of into our pockets. My small sample of Link users that Saturday afternoon suggests these kiosks are indeed mostly used by the city’s least privileged. Of the 15 people I saw using a Link, only two or three of them would be likely to appear on LinkNYC promotional materials (i.e., one well-dressed woman making a phone call, or one middle aged, casually-dressed tourist waiting for his phone to finish charging). Most users were camped out for the long haul, for hours or even days at a time, surrounded by their possessions and browsing music videos on YouTube, making phone calls, and checking Facebook. These campers often make themselves comfortable on makeshift chairs and couches devised from newspaper stands, milk crates, and furniture pulled from alleys and street corners.