Sure, it may not look like much
now, but soon this shrouded installation, which arrived this morning, will be a gigabit Wi-Fi access point/hub/thing outside the Starbucks on Third Avenue and East 15th Street.
We'll cut-n-paste some from
The Verge for the background:
First announced in November 2014, the hubs are designed as an update to the standard phone booth, using upgraded infrastructure to provide gigabit Wi-Fi access points.
And!
The full network will install more than 7,500 public hubs throughout the city, each replacing a pre-existing phone booth. Once completed, the hubs will also include USB device charging ports, touchscreen web browsing, and two 55-inch advertising displays. The city estimates that ads served by the new hubs will generate more than $500 million in revenue over the next 12 years.
And this LinkNYC kiosk is the first one that workers have installed.
As Gothamist notes, "the city has pledged to build 7,500 of the hubs in place of old pay phone booths over the next 8 years, with 3,500 of them coming in the next four years, and 499 more of them over the next 6 months."
LinkNYC will be testing this one for the next few weeks before you will be able to use the free Wi-Fi, charge your smartphone
or have the government track your every move even easier.
