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New York's Free LinkNYC Internet Kiosks Are Now Used By 5 Million Users, Who Have Participated in 1 Billion Sessions and Make 500,000 Phone Calls a Month (venturebeat.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: In 2014, in a bid to replace the more than 11,000 aging payphones scattered across New York City's pedestrian walkways with more functional fixtures, Mayor Bill de Blasio launched a competition -- the Reinvent Payphones initiative -- calling on private enterprises, residents, and nonprofits to submit designs for replacements. In the end, LinkNYC -- a plan proposed by consortium CityBridge -- secured a contract from the city, beating out competing proposals with electricity-generating piezoelectric pressure plates and EV charging stations. The plan was to spend $200 million installing as many as 10,000 kiosks, or Links, that would supply free, encrypted gigabit Wi-Fi to passers-by within 150 feet. They would have buttons that link directly to 911 and New York's 311 service and free USB charging stations for smartphones, plus wired handsets that would allow free calls to all 50 states and Washington, D.C. And perhaps best of all, they wouldn't cost the city a dime; advertising would subsidize expansion and ongoing maintenance.
The Links wouldn't just get urbanites online and let them juice their phones, though. The idea was to engage users, too, principally with twin 55-inch high-definition displays and tethered Android tablets with map functions. Mike Gamaroff, head of innovation at Kinetic, characterized the Links in 2016 as "first and foremost a utility for the people of the city, that also doubles up as an advertising network." Two years after the deployment of prototypical kiosks in Manhattan, Intersection -- a part of the aforementioned CityBridge, which with Qualcomm and CIVIQ Smartscapes manages the kiosks -- is ready to declare them a success. The roughly 1,600 Links recently hit three milestones: 1 billion sessions, 5 million users, and 500,000 phone calls a month. Recommended reading: Free Municipal Wi-Fi May Be the Next Front In the War Against Privacy.
The Links wouldn't just get urbanites online and let them juice their phones, though. The idea was to engage users, too, principally with twin 55-inch high-definition displays and tethered Android tablets with map functions. Mike Gamaroff, head of innovation at Kinetic, characterized the Links in 2016 as "first and foremost a utility for the people of the city, that also doubles up as an advertising network." Two years after the deployment of prototypical kiosks in Manhattan, Intersection -- a part of the aforementioned CityBridge, which with Qualcomm and CIVIQ Smartscapes manages the kiosks -- is ready to declare them a success. The roughly 1,600 Links recently hit three milestones: 1 billion sessions, 5 million users, and 500,000 phone calls a month. Recommended reading: Free Municipal Wi-Fi May Be the Next Front In the War Against Privacy.
The machine is still safe and is no longer dependent on the old analog phones. Its AI upgraded itself a while back to use wifi now so I can still access the backdoor, which it communicates with me regularly. I know, because I'm the one who created it. Cocco Puffs still has root, but it's all good.
How does spending $200 million to install equate to "not costing the city a dime?"
And for 10,000 kiosks that is about $20K per kiosk. If they made the things bulletproof with titanium steel shells I don't see how the cost of goods can exceed $5,000.
That subcontractor made a killing.
Just let us track you.
5 million users are now being IDd and tracked around the city for whom they communicated with, when and probably what about.
Hmm...
So, ~$20K per kiosk. And, from TFS, each kiosk handles about two calls per day (500,000 phone calls a month, 10,000 kiosks).
I'm sure there's a point to spending that much to handle that small a number of calls, but I don't see it from here....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Piezo plates, etc. They will never be fixed when they break. It will just become another part of a decaying infrastructure. No one ever has the will to repair and maintain. "Solutions" are introduced, contracts are awarded, The shysters are carnie barkers on the front end make the money and drink the cream. When they are gone, lot's of luck. The year 2025, piezo plates? Sorry that company is no longer in business. Parts are unavailable. All this crap is ill conceived and short term thinking. The sexy part lasts about 1% of the lifetime. That's where the money is. Then it's decay and neglect.
Sloppy Journalism. The Payphone Projects been documenting issues with these kiosks, from out of date news and weather, bus alerts for lines not on nearby streets, to non-functioning tablets and inflated usage statistics.
The number of people using the kiosks is easily dwarfed by the number of people affected by their advertising purpose -- to work as bluetooth and wifi beacons to provide location data for anyone carrying a cellphone within their vicinity.
https://theintercept.com/2018/09/08/linknyc-free-wifi-kiosks/
https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/07/30/1826229/google-wi-fi-kiosks-in-new-york-promise-no-privacy-can-collect-anything
The Pay phones were at least somewhat private. These are loud speaker phones where anyone can hear your conversation. Bring me back the payphone!
People just want to complain. If it is not exactly what they want it is just crap.
Their most scary function is as mass surveillance of all passerbys thanks to built in cameras.
No thanks.
Assuming that someone has not smashed everything up they will have all of the ambiance of the originals, the smell and urine, the visual impact of puke and graffito but none of the privacy.