Can You Download Me Now? NY Payphones Become Wi-Fi Hot Spots
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK — Operator, won’t you help me replace this call?

A 9-foot-tall, narrow structure installed this past week on a Manhattan sidewalk is signaling a plan to turn payphones into what’s billed as the world’s biggest and fastest municipal Wi-Fi network.

The first of at least 7,500 planned hot spots are due to go online early next year, promising superfast and free Wi-Fi service, new street phones with free calling, ports to charge personal phones and a no-cost windfall for the city.

With some cities nationwide making renewed pushes for public Wi-Fi after an earlier wave of enthusiasm faded, New York officials say their project is democratizing data access while modernizing outmoded street phones.

For now, the first hot spot is still being tested and sits under a gray cover. But some passers-by like the sound of what’s in store.

“It’s always helpful” to have Wi-Fi to reduce the bite that apps and web-surfing take out of cellular data service, which is capped in many consumers’ plans, Jack Thomas said this week while texting near the dormant kiosk.

But others have qualms about New Yorkers linking their devices to a public network as they stroll down the street, though the city has said data will be encrypted and any information harvested for advertising will be anonymized.

“I think it makes us all more vulnerable to wrongdoers,” Bee Mosca said as she eyed the future hot spot.

Payphones may seem like telecom relics when 68 percent of Americans own smartphones, according to the Pew Research Center on Internet, Science & Technology. But about 8,200 payphones still dot New York streets.

Some were pressed into service amid outages after 2012’s Superstorm Sandy, but their numbers and usage have declined overall, and 37 percent of those inspected last year were inoperable.

The city experimented with providing Wi-Fi from a few payphones in 2012, then hatched the current, eight-year “LinkNYC” plan.

A consortium of companies, including wireless technology player Qualcomm Inc., is to pay the estimated $200 million installation cost and take half the revenue from the kiosks’ digital advertising, projected at $1 billion over 12 years. The city gets the other half, more than doubling the $17 million a year it gets from payphones now.

Each hot spot covers about a 150-foot radius with what’s pledged as one-gigabit-per-second service, about 20 times the speed of average home Internet service. Officials have said the service is intended for outdoor use; it’s not clear whether it might extend inside some businesses and homes.

Though many Americans now carry Internet connectivity in their pockets, the network “can be a win for users who can save on their data plans, and it can be a win for (cellular) networks if they’re really overtaxed,” said Erik Stallman, general counsel of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a group that advocates for Internet liberties and access.

Tourists without local cellular service also could benefit, noted John Breyault, a National Consumers League vice president.

LinkNYC isn’t without opponents: A payphone company has sued the city, saying it created a monopoly for the new consortium. The city has said it believes the arrangement is legal.

Many U.S. cities strove to cover themselves in Wi-Fi in the early 2000s. But a number of the plans foundered as home access proliferated, usage and ad revenues disappointed and some Internet service providers complained the city networks were unfair competitors.

But some cities have recently recast and reinvigorated their efforts. Boston is working to expand a “Wicked Free WiFi” network with over 170 hot spots, and Los Angeles is encouraging private companies to provide free basic wireless to all homes and businesses, with outdoor coverage as a goal.

Still, some question whether it’s wise for city governments to get into offering Wi-Fi, rather than leaving it to businesses.

But “New York is not a typical city,” said Jeff Kagan, a telecommunications analyst and consultant.

「網」連紐約市 飆速兼生財

一座座九呎（2.7公尺）高的瘦高結構物最近一周開始聳立在紐約市曼哈坦人行道上，向民眾昭示，「連結紐約市」（LinkNYC）無線上網計畫即將開始，把紐約市街頭的公共電話改造成為全球最大、最快速的城市無線上網網絡。

該計畫的第一階段，預定至少安裝7500個Wi-Fi上網熱點，這些熱點將提供超高速及免費Wi-Fi服務、免費通話的新街邊電話、個人電話充電插座，並讓市府坐收無本收益。

在推動公共Wi-Fi的早期熱潮逐漸退燒後，全美各地部分城市如今又老調重彈之際，紐約市官員說，這項新方案將讓民眾均享資訊存取，同時可汰換街邊公共電話。

目前，首批熱點仍在測試當中，套上灰色罩子，但是部分路人已對該方案翹首期盼。站在尚未啟用的熱點旁傳簡訊的湯姆斯說，有了公共Wi-Fi熱點可以節省手機的數據服務用量。

不過也有人懷疑紐約民眾會在大馬路上把自己的移動裝置連結上公共網絡，即使市府信誓旦旦承諾，熱點的資訊將被加密，廣告商獲得的也都是匿名的資訊。莫斯卡說：「我認為公共Wi-Fi會使我們更容易受到不法之徒的侵害。」

丕優研究中心指出，由於68%美國民眾擁有智慧手機，公共電話幾乎已成歷史，但紐約市街道目前仍殘存約8200座付費電話，去年經檢查，有37%已故障無法使用。

2012年，紐約市府曾試驗利用少數公共電話提供Wi-Fi服務，隨後醞釀出為期八年的LinkNYC計畫。

該計畫由高通（Qualcomm）公司等組成的集團支付估計2億美元的安裝費用，自各熱點獲得的數位廣告收益，一半歸於這個集團，另一半繳給市府；預估在12年內廣告收益累計將高達10億美元，而市府每年只從公共電話得到1700萬美元。

每一熱點涵蓋範圍為方圓150呎（45.7公尺），提供資訊服務速度為每秒1GB，比一般家庭網路速度還快。有關官員說，此熱點主要是供戶外使用，將來是否擴展至商家和家庭室內，目前仍不確定。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/01/01/us/ap-us-payphone-wi-fi.html

2016-01-02．聯合晚報．A4．國際．美聯社