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New York Begins Public Gigabit Wi-Fi Rollout (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Workers in New York City have begun installing the city's first LinkNYC kiosks. The kiosks are free, public Wi-Fi access points, which are taking the spots formerly occupied by phone booths. 500 more of these hubs will be installed by mid-July, and the full network will eventually include over 7,500 of them. "Once completed, the hubs will also include USB device charging ports, touchscreen web browsing, and two 55-inch advertising displays." The displays are expected to bring the city $500 million in revenue over the next 12 years.
When the project was announced in 2014, officials said construction would start "next year." They sure cut it close.
You can set up your own hotspot and pwn a bunch of n00bs
it would be a shame....
I hope they install anti-bum strips to stop the filthy beggars infesting them. Of course, they'll all be vandalized and stripped for bits in short order by the denizens of that dirty crap hole "city".
Maybe I'm paranoid, but that just doesn't seem like a good idea.
This sounded like a fine idea until they mentioned USB ports. Those suckers are gonna be full of gum, or worse, in 60 seconds. The fact that they're even trying to provide USB charging makes me worry that they totally don't understand how to protect public hardware from vandalism.
If somebody taking a fire axe to your touchscreen isn't part of your interface design document, you don't know what you're doing.
What, are all the lawsuits out of the way already?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
they already own a minority share.. soon as rollout hits 50% or so, i think they'll buy the rest. the tracking potential of hotspots all over new york is too much for them to resist.
to start killing people to stop this.
They murdered our mayor after he said he wanted the people to have Internet access.
It is so nice to see my taxes spent on something I will NEVER use. I live in upstate NY. NYC is such a sesspool that I am not likely to ever go there. Where is my Gigabit connection? I cant even get more than a 50Mbps cable line here. That is the upper offering and only in the one city within 40 miles of the next. Typical Internet speeds here are 3-5 Mbps DSL. Some locations here the only option is high latency satellite. Yet again upstate NY tax dollars are subsidizing a NYC moneymaker.
With greedy ISPs like Comcast trying to bring back DATA CAPS (yes, lets call them what they are) in 2015, who cares about the "how" or "why"? Public Wi-Fi is a GREAT thing; internet service providers do not deserve to be paid under these circumstances. Public Wi-Fi would take money away from them. Slowly but surely :)
While I am not a resident (NYC Police and Administrators like to call a NYC resident an NYC rodent) I have great suspicion of the NYC and their Kiss-Kiss Tech companies giving money and sex slaves to NYC officials and Officials in Albany to cover the Felony Crimes being committed.
Ha ha NYC Fuckers.
500 million cryptocoin maybe?
A more appropriate headline would be "NYC Begins Mesh Surveillance Network Rollout."
"The kiosks are free, public Wi-Fi access points"
"the full network will eventually include over 7,500 of them." "The displays are expected to bring the city $500 million in revenue over the next 12 years."
500m / 12 / 7500 = $5555.55 per year per kiosk.
I'm presuming that's ALL advertising because - why would you pay to charge your phone or browse the web nowadays?
But, let's presume that's true. If it brings in $5k per year per kiosk, how much is it going to cost to fit out? Gigabit wifi, some sort of Internet connection, two huge screens, some device managing the screens, cost of refit, etc. etc. etc. That's GOT to lose you several YEARS of revenue per kiosk almost immediately, yes? And then... quite where's the profit coming from?
And that's not talking about vandalism, damage, wear and tear, weatherproofing, maintenance, etc.
Damn, they have some good technology if they've design 55 inch screens that for 12 years can (a) work properly even under the most optimistic of conditions, and (b) resist vandalism for 12 years.
As another poster noted, the fact that they're including USB chargers in public -- in NYC fer chrissakes -- means the designers / specifiers either don't have a clue, or were told to ignore the many lessons that companies deploying public infrastructure in NYC have learned over the years. Every time I visit NYC, I'm impressed and amazed at how incredibly securely built things are that are designed to be handled by the public. It really does look like they're made to withstand attacks from someone carrying an iron pipe.
It's difficult to imagine that sort of resilience in a quite rather large screen from the standpoint of its inherent fragility, ignoring the potential resale value it might carry for an appropriately motivated group of individuals.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
FTFY
Damn, they have some good technology if they've design 55 inch screens that for 12 years can (a) work properly even under the most optimistic of conditions, and (b) resist vandalism for 12 years.
Not really, it's pretty easy to do.
There are plenty of "LCD Armor" enclosures available to lock an LCD in that still allow viewing and are designed to keep the monitor safe from all but the most extreme forms of abuse.
ATMs and kiosks at the mall have used them for years with a pretty decent track record.
Additionally the enclosures have a key lock so they can be opened, thus when the LCD dies it can be replaced with another working one, which they can do for 12 years if they wish.
You are quite correct about the USB ports being a horrible idea though.
There is no real way to protect their connector(s), and you just know at least one asshole out there will plug in a USB zapper to fry the power supply itself, not to mention being filled with gum or worse.
They really should remove the USB charger part of this thing for their own benefit, while at the same time no one else should use the USB charger part of this thing for their own safety.
A bus shelter doesn't even last 5 mins before it becomes a makeshift toilet or a shelter for the homeless. Put up your wifi if you like and your ad screens but USB ports, they'll be busted and broken in less than 90 seconds after they're installed.
Construction began in 2015 when they started assembling kiosks. It's not like they do all the assembly and testing on location. Thus, even if they had not yet installed one by January 1, they still could have begun construction in 2015.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
All of the revenue comes from the two street-level 55-inch advertising displays. None of the revenue is going to come form the wifi/charging kiosks. What's that mean? The wifi/charging aspects will quickly fall into disrepair. There's no money in keeping them working.
Those advertising displays have to bring in ~$500-$1000/mo to break-even. Will advertisers pay that much for street-level displays? Probably. At least in some neighborhoods.
That 911 button is going to see a lot of LULZ action.
Can anyone identify whose access point is being used?
The picture is of the Ruckus ZoneFlex R710.
Features include:
Wi-Fi Monetization
If they are going to be around for 12 years, why not pass on the USB charging port and instead use a wireless charging pad.
Not all devices support wireless charging today, but within 12 years, I am sure every device will use wireless charging. This could even spur faster adoption of wireless charging devices.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
This is like a wet dream for the NSA. It creates a treasure trove of intelligence information ... especially because I'm certain that hidden in the fine print somewhere is that, "you have no expectation of privacy...."
By the time they get to that scale they'll find out why these networks always fail. To operate at usable speeds - much less gigabit speeds - requires significant amounts of limited spectrum. They're going to have never-ending battles with interference, and anytime a hotspot can "see" another one they will interfere with each other.
Unless someone finds a way to rewrite the laws of physics wireless will never scale sufficiently to allow for this kind of widespread use.
+1 interesting
That's actually a great idea. A wireless charging device would fit in perfectly with this type of thing, and can be protected from direct contact just like the LCD could be.
As you note the state of wireless charging standards today sort of sucks, but there are a couple standards being pushed they could work with, and anything to push adoption faster is likely to be only a good thing.
Hopefully these things are engineered such that the charging section can be upgraded or replaced as time goes on.
Like Craigslist purchases, all this stuff should be in police / sheriff office lobbies.
Not if they are in constant use by wall huggers.