BY COLIN MIXSON | The age of fishing for change to make a call is coming to an end, as the city proceeds to replace thousands of coin-operated payphones throughout the five boroughs with up to 10,000 free, high-speed wireless fidelity (WiFi) kiosks powered by hundreds of miles of robust fiber optic cables.
In phase one of the rollout, those in Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen will soon be able to access dozens of LinkNYC hotspots — and many say it’s about time the city upgraded its increasingly anachronistic payphones.
“I think it’s a great idea,” said Collins Nai, a junior studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology. “These payphones are obsolete.”
LinkNYC, which takes the physical form of sleek, modern-looking kiosks, will emit gigabit-speed wireless Internet in a 150-foot radius, which can be accessed free of charge via digital devices, such as wireless-enabled cellphones, computers and tablets, and which will also include a touch-screen interface for web browsing on the kiosk itself.
The kiosks also provide free calls anywhere in the United States, as well as maps, city services, and an emergency call button for phoning 911, in addition to cellphone charging stations.
As part of the program’s initial rollout, the so-called “links” are in the process of being installed along Eighth Ave. north of W. 14th St., and, while the mayor’s office — citing ongoing feasibility considerations — couldn’t provide an exact number of kiosks planned for that corridor, a spokeswoman described an Eighth Ave. flush with dozens of links (all of them up and running by July 21).
Currently, 11 kiosks have been installed along Eighth Ave., clustered between W. 38th and W. 58th Sts., although their WiFi capabilities will not be activated for at least several weeks.
The kiosks are being roughly sited to replace existing payphones — taking advantage of existing conduits and power lines beneath them — although the payphones, which sometimes come in batches of two or three booths, will not see more than one link installed in their place, and no kiosk will be installed within 50 feet of another.
The recent WiFi rollout is the culmination of several years of planning and feasibility studies to determine how existing payphone infrastructure, such as conduits, electricity, and phone lines, could be utilized by the city amidst the proliferation of cellphones and portable computers.
Payphones are rapidly losing their ubiquitous status, with the country’s roughly 872,000 payphones in 2007 being reduced to 195,000 by 2014, according to the American Public Communication Council (APCC), a national trade association representing independent payphone operators in the United States.
The decline can be directly linked to the rise of the mobile phone and, additionally, to the so-called “Obama Phones,” or cellphones paid for through the federally subsidized Lifeline Assistance Program, which was greatly expanded during the Obama Administration.
“Obviously cellphones totally changed the payphone industry,” said Deborah Sterman, CFO for APCC and APCC Services. “And the federal cellphone program was really not a good thing for the payphone industry.”
That said, Sterman noted that payphones in areas with large immigrant populations such as southern Texas, Florida, California, and New York City still enjoy robust usage.
The city piloted the free WiFi program in 2012, when the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications spearheaded the installation of 25 hotspots throughout the five boroughs, while simultaneously advertising a request for information in order to gauge the capabilities of various communications suppliers to find new use for the city’s payphones.
These early initiatives were followed by company scouting programs, in which the city solicited companies to submit business proposals with guidelines requiring free calling to 311, 911 and free 24/7 public WiFi — which ultimately resulted in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s 2014 announcement that the CityBridge Consortium had been chosen to install and maintain the LinkNYC kiosks.
The phase one rollout will see LinkNYC kiosks installed in select areas throughout the city by summer. However, the program will continue in phases throughout the next 12 years. In that time, the city will completely remove the 6,451 payphones it estimates currently exist on city streets, a number which is dwarfed by the 7,500 to 10,000 links that will eventually be installed, according to a spokeswoman for the mayor’s office.
Along Third Ave., where LinkNYC kiosks have already been activated, locals have been impressed by the gigabit-speed WiFi signals the links emit.
One mattress salesman in the East Village said that he sometimes uses the link WiFi in lieu of his normal Internet provider.
“If my service is really slow, I’ll use the link,” said sales professional Mark Anthony, who works at the Third Ave. Sleepy’s (btw. E. 13th & E. 14th Sts.).
In Chelsea, locals say they’re most looking forward to putting worries about finding a place to charge their phones while on the go behind them, and not having to hunt down a phone in case of emergency.
“If you have an emergency, people look at you funny if you ask to use their phone, like you’re going to try and walk away with it” said Nadia Leonelli, a 13-year Chelsea resident. “So they might be useful for that.”
New Yorkers will likely find many different uses for the new WiFi kiosks, but one thing is for certain — they’re not using the payphones, and for more reasons than one.
“I haven’t used a payphone for 10 years,’ said Leonelli. “A lot of them don’t even work and, you know what? They’re kind of gross.”
For more information, visit link.nyc.
