On Monday, May 15 at 1pm, I will be testifying about the state of Wi-Fi in NYC Parks. The hearing will be held in the Committee Room at City Hall by the Committee on Technology in Government. The hearing, chaired by Council Member Gale Brewer, will be a joint oversight hearing with the Committee on Parks, chaired by Council Member Helen Foster of the Bronx, on the topic of wireless Internet access in New York City parks.
This hearing is coming at an interesting time, as NYCwireless is expanding its Park coverage. In the past 3 years, the NYC Parks department has succeeded in lighting up only part of one park, and their RFPs (one 3 years ago, another a few months ago) have been widely criticized for being structured so that non-profits like NYCwireless cannot easily bid, and for failing to successfully incentivize developers to create Parks hotspots.
The hearing should be an interesting one, especially since the only successful Wi-Fi deployments in New York City came from NYCwireless. Even though we don’t operate all of the existing hotspots anymore (though this may change), NYCwireless or its members built almost all (except 1 or 2) of the hotspots that have graced New York City and served its citizens and visitors.
Filed under: New York City, NYCwireless, Policy
