Saturday, January 16, 2016

Another Wi-Fi hub arrives on 3rd Avenue



Another Wi-Fi hub was unveiled this past week on Third Avenue... right at East 14th Street (and a block from the Wi-Fi hub that debuted on Dec. 28).

Soon, you will be able to send and receive faxes, charge your pager or hop on the Information Superhighway from right here.



Actually, these payphone-replacing Wi-Fi kiosks will offer free gigabit Internet ... and a charging station for tablets and smartphones, among other things.

This one is also offering free pizza for a limited time only...



You can read more background about the LinkNYC project here.

11 comments:

Fipper said...

Not sure if I want to plug anything into that...

Anonymous said...

I am very interested in when and where these will be in the outlying boroughs. The EV is nice, but I am not sure if it is worth two subway rides to have free wifi.

Anonymous said...

Let the hacking begin!

Anonymous said...

Drone strike!

Anonymous said...

What's the catch? Why bend over backwards to provide free wi-fi to a bunch of ingrates? Of course there is a catch. I'll stick to my trusty old cellular data network. When I am out and about it's not like I am trying to torrent big bootleg movie files or whatever. Who the hell needs wi-fi while they are strolling down lameass third avenue?

Anonymous said...

sad to see the now empty shell of what used to be gothic furniture in the background.

Anonymous said...

WiFi clusters of cancerous microwaves engulf us everywhere now. Not to mention the violation of civil liberties like PRIVACY as wifi also acts as scanner reader of personal info according to MIT

Anonymous said...

4:17 anon - wifi doesn't cause cancer. That's silly. Neither does your microwave. And if you turn your wifi antenna off on your phone when you're out there's no tracking (turn Bluetooth off, too!). Also, it's not some magical thing that can pull all your personal info from your phone. With wifi on, your phone sends out some info that identifies the device, and that can be used to track the device. Correlating that device to you is a whole 'nother challenge.

Are they out to get you? Probably. Is it like CSI? Not even close.

Shawn said...

I've reached out to Link NYC to get upload and download speeds for the Wi-Fi, as well as some security and browser questions (do they filter out certain sites?)

LTE on your phone is pretty dang fast already, faster than many Wi-Fi networks like at coffee shops when you consider they're (often) sharing a single line.

With the proliferation of cheap phone chargers, many the size of a small pack of gum, I wonder who these chargers are geared toward; also, what's the etiquette? If someone is waiting to charge their phone, how long are you supposed to wait for them?

Anonymous said...

> Correlating that device to you is a whole 'nother challenge.

Unless you happen to have that device in your pocket when the correlation is done.

Jill W. said...

I imagine the wifi is awesome for people visiting from another country who have smart phones without any data plan. I found this to be true when I'm overseas. And the charger would be helpful for me because my 3 year old phone's battery dies quickly. I don't really want to carry another brick around.