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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.
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.
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"
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.
Better than being "disappeared". I was once "disappeared" by the NHS for six days. My GP called me in for a checkup, found out my systolic pressure was stratospheric (over 180) due to pneumonia, called in paramedics who put a gas mask on me and rushed me off to an acute care ward. My mobile phone ran out of power, no-one had a compatible charger, the bedside telephone/TV pods didn't support unrestricted international/national calls (only 2 minutes to another mobile phone, unlimited 01/02/03 numbers, no international calls). While TV could be paid for by credit card at £10/day, telephone service was restricted. None of the ward telephones would do international calls either. Even thought I had a telephone number that people could call, there was no way of getting that number to the outside world. No SMS, Email or messaging.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
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
They have an audio-out jack. $3 set of headphones solves the privacy issue.
The WiFi landing page accepts any email address (i.e. fuckyougoogle@fuckgoogle.org works fine) without verification. Combined with a MAC address randomizer, tracking might be a wee bit difficult.
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.
Tried getting a charger, everyone else had iPhone's,
These TV pods go through the hospital exchange. To stop anyone using the hospital telephone system to make free personal international calls, they simply block those calls - an employee has to get permission from an authorizing manager. Many hospitals are funded using PPP (Private-Public Partnerships). Things like medical treatment are public sector funded, but others things like car parking, shops and cafes (Starbacks, Costa, Nero) are privately run and pay rent.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/...
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
You don't have to be near a LinkNYC kiosk (in line with the camera) in order to use its wifi, so this is largely a moot point.