Update January 20th:
We did expect the LinkNYC Wi-Fi (802.11ac) network to be fast. In fact, it’s insanely fast. According to this report by Gizmodo, the new ‘kiosks’ now deliver some 436 Mbps in download speeds – fifty times faster than Starbucks Wi-Fi and about ten times faster than NYC Wi-Fi at the train platforms. Now we do understand that the network is not exactly capacity strained at the moment, but it does bode well for the future of City Wi-Fi. Unfortunately, we’re still not allowed to tell you who the AP vendor is!
LinkNYC has taken longer than expected to get off the ground – but now finally, the installation of thousands of electronic & Wi-Fi enabled ‘kiosks’ is underway in the Big Apple. Reports say that only a couple of weeks of testing is needed before New Yorkers can finally enjoy free ‘gigabit’ Wi-Fi on the streets.
This is likely the most ambitious City Wi-Fi network ever conceived – and no small amount of innovation has gone into designing the kiosks. From a commercial point of view the idea is to lure New Yorkers to the kiosk with many useful features (including charging sockets for your phone and free phone calls) and then present you with ads on the 55-inch display while you’re standing there.
According to LinkNYC the project’s ad revenue is expected to reach a whopping $500 million over the next 12 years. Google has an ownership share in LinkNYC through its ownership of one of the consortium partners (Sidewalk Labs) while Qualcomm is supplying key components of the technology.
Well – it’s not exactly gigabit speeds to individual devices, of course. The gigabit designation refers to the capacity of the kiosk. In reality, 802.11ac clients can expect to get around 40 Mbps, which is still pretty darn good. The range of the kiosk is cited by one source to be up to 150 feet – also pretty good.
It’s likely (but unconfirmed) that the kiosks will gather anonymised data on passers-by (people counting with location-based analytics) although LinkNYC will not be pushing ads to your device. According to this news report, the system will only ask for your name and email to sign you up. LinkNYC says on its website that it ‘takes security & privacy very seriously’ and will not sell or share any user data.
So is LinkNYC the a blueprint for the future of City Wi-Fi? Well – we still have to see how much usage the system will get and how many (I’m guessing they will be counting this!) eyeballs will land on the ads. Those numbers will determine how much advertisers are ready to spend. If all of that works out then the Big Apple’s big Wi-Fi project could be a breakthrough.
Above: The LinkNYC kiosk. Click to show details in high-res
For a great photo report on LinkNYC kiosk deployment in progress see this link.
/Claus
Why do the Americas assume they are the first to deploy public WiFi in a city. The Kiosk will be a failure and people will not pay for adds or have the time to wait for an add to finish to be bale to get their WiFi messages.
In Asia Singapore and Korea are the most ubiquitous followed by China an to some degree Hong Kong. And this has been the case for many years (ten years).
Hong Kong and Singapore had Mobile in its Metro system twenty years ago unlike the US which still has poor technology deployment. The value for money is very poor.
Also if the mobile companies provided more competitive pricing for data, as they do in Asia, WiFi would be just an alternate.
WiFi is FREE in Asia in many environments, especially government buildings and parks and the food and beverage business.Even airports and train stations in Asia have FREE WiFi
In Hong Kong, PCCW put their WiFi in all their phone boxes. So if you wanted WiFi you had to find a phone box or be Superman and change in the phone box to get service. Competitors provide piece meal WiFi services at best.
Buses in China have now deployed Free WiFi, and the Metro stations have had mobile for many years, and have installed WiFi hot spots which are just as stupid as a booth.
Major Five Star Hotels provide “Free” WiFi Hong Kong for a limited 15-30 minutes and then get ripped off, as you have to pay high premiums. If you are not a hotel guest, forget it.
We would like to work the Newyork WIFI consortium and deploy similar project in New Delhi
I agree Scotty, nothing special about NYC. Factually, RoW has helped NYC get this piece of WiFi technology that has been progressively evolving for long.
@ Mahendra, you don’t need NYC consortium, please get RoW, technology can be delivered for Mobility WiFi 400 Mb +