WI-FI FOR NEW YORKERS By Hope Wilkos, Writer/Blogger
We are living in the age of technology and these days, Wi-Fi in public areas is almost a necessity instead of a luxury.
The City of New York has reached new agreements with the two largest cable franchises – Cablevision Systems and Time Warner Cable – requiring the companies to provide Wi-Fi in 32 public parks within the next two years.
Carole Post, Commissioner of the city’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, has alos confirmed that Time Warner has committed to setting up computers with broadband connections in to community centers in underserved areas of the five boroughs. Cablevision will provide free broadband to all libraries in its service territory.
This is the 1st agreement of its kind, giving New York the edge of being the pioneer in this area and hopefully making it successful enough for other cities to follow suit in the future.
The list of parks to be covered is still in the works, however, parts of Central Park and Prospect Park in Brooklyn are likely candidates. The wiring should be considerably complete within two years and the agreement will run through 2020.
The Wi-Fi in the parks would be free to all users for up to three 10-minute periods per month. Beyond that, users would pay 99 cents for each 24-hour period in which they log in. All Cablevision and Time Warner broadband subscribers would receive the service for free.
Another bit of good news was released by Towerstream, a private company. Towerstream will make Wi-Fi available in Manhattan to those who download an app onto their phones or tablet computers. They have lined up Amazon, eBay and Google to sponsor the public service which launches on August 22nd.
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