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.

Comments

$200M for 10K kiosks...

[CrimsonAvenger]

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....

Re:$200M for 10K kiosks...

[ShanghaiBill]

What you are missing is that the calls thru the wired handsets are only a very small part of what these do. They are also free WiFi hotspots, so if you live close by, you don't need to pay for Internet.

But most of the cost is to pay for weather and vandal resistant advertising displays.

Re: $200M for 10K kiosks...

[iamstretchypanda]

There are only 1600 kiosks in operation at this point. Since the pilot program was successful, LinkNYC will finish the build out. Right now the kiosks are only in Manhatten.

Re:Numbers

[forty-2]

As I understand, the arrangement is similar to that between the MTA and Intersection/Alphabet - The MTA (or city in this case) bears little to none of the cost, while the Corporation who installed them makes up the cost through advertising.

I design and oversee the execution of plenty of digital installations that have to withstand the elements & abuse from the public, and $20k a pop is not surprising at all. A daylight visible screen alone is like $3k - $5k, plus all the misc power & networking gak, ventilation & and possibly heating to keep the stuff within operating temps. Wrap that up in a stainless steel enclosure, bolt it to the ground, and get it powered and wired, and I'd be pleasantly surprised if the subcontractor made their 15%.

Many are apparently non-functional

[Dispenser]

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.

Re:Many are apparently non-functional

[voicofsf]

This website is rather casual 3rd party observations. i.e. "Since last week I’ve encountered about a dozen non-working tablets, all reported as working by LinkNYC and indicated as such on this map." (https://www.payphone-project.com/linknyc-kiosk-installations-have-grinded-to-a-halt-and-other-observations.html). This is indicative of the nature of this website - they don't profess to be taking a comprehensive test per kiosk over significant periods. Seems more random takes as time or place allows. The project is getting both negative and positive reviews, as it should during an initial trial period. Tablet use was very often over-enthusiastically employed for porno and drug deals. It's probable that the consortium behind the installation over-estimated initial revenue along with difficulty of installation, and unintended re-purposing. There's a significant population in NYC that does not have home broadband. There's a homeless population as well that needs access for many reasons. Bottom line, the NYC install is successful enough. Enough that it's spreading to other locales, both domestically and abroad. Hope to see positive contributions toward this and similar projects from all of us.

Re:Free my ass

[mikael]

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.