Something tells me the will actually be ""free"" Wi-Fi Hot Spots.
(i.e. if you have 2 valid forms of ID proving you live 4 blocks from the hot spot and you are willing to spend 5 minutes filling out web forms and you only want to visit one of 50 sanctioned websites and you are willing to receive notification emails and your computer is Windows 8.1 but doesn't have the incompatible service pack installed that the java applet crashes on and you happen to catch it on a day when it's working and you can get the webbeams login url to redirect properly and you don't accidentally scroll down while the login page is loading and you click through the screens about the new street sweeping schedule you will be able to browse the web for 17.5 minutes.)
That's extreme. This is just a swing toward turning internet access into utilities like electricity and water which are available without being tied to your residence. You still have public street lights and public water fountains outside your home. Likewise, internet is slowly moving away form this "thing" you always have to pay for to stay connected.
Verizon, TWC, Optimum, Comcast et al require that you have an account with them to use their hotspots. But you don't need an account with ConEd to be able to read your newspaper or book out on the street. This is where internet is headed.
McDonalds, Starbucks, and many other private companies, all do not require an account, many don't even require you buy anything.
Counting street lights as electricity is a bit of reach. Last I checked to have electrical service or water service I actually had to have an account. After all, where would they provide it?
"Advertisers can reach subway riders in many ways such as sponsorship of Free Wi-Fi, landing page banner advertisements, video advertisements and application downloads"
I worked on a project with Verzion to wifi enable NYC payphones in 2003 [1], I think we did around 150 in the end. I worked on backend software and then eventually driving around the city in a Verizon van debugging hotspots. The system didn't work very well then - most payphone booths were not in good areas for using wifi, there wasn't enough coverage and there was quite a high failure rate for the equipment (and sometimes it was stolen). I like the idea of having other services available in the booth though, and perhaps it will work better now that everyone has wifi equipped phones and doesn't need to pull out their laptop to use it.
I think it's pretty common around the world - the Swedish telco converted their phone booths to Wifi hotspots back in 2007. Cheap fast LTE has taken over though and they're finally removing all phone booths by 2015.
I'm surprised they're removing wifi enabled phone booths. WiFi offload is growing in importance in congested mobile network regions[1], although perhaps phone booths don't necessarily have fast enough network links to meaningfully offload enough load (yet).
If these type of pilot projects pan out then cities could eye this as a potential revenue stream if somebody isn't already paying for phone booth street locations on a recurring basis.
Although there's still some way to go before we reach clean WiFi & cell tower call hand-offs, just having the initial ability to make calls over WiFi via the 'branded' voice application will be huge for traditional wireless carriers, although also opens up the playing field for urban-only WiFi carriers.[2]
The 'branded' voice application on your smartphones will soon be just that when VoLTE is deployed more widely[1]. VoLTE = Voice over LTE, which could just as easily be Voice over WiFi. The upcoming battle for which app you launch when you want to make voice calls is slowly creeping up on us, since voice is still one of the stickiest phone applications.
Does anyone else think this is (cool but) 10 years too late? I would like to see a model where your phone/device seamlessly connects to these hotspots without the current (very manual and frustrating) wi-fi connect process.
For example, I'm walking down the street, pull out my device and connect to this wifi hostspot. Does the hotspot now work everywhere in NYC? Or do I need to connect to each hostspot each time? Will it remember me or will I need to re-authenticate on a regular basis similar to how TV providers grant access within mobile apps?
but late than never. i'm guessing this starts to expand to other cities - but instead of replacing payphones, they will start building new hubs at street corners or other public spots that are currently empty.
If you live in a walk-up building and there is a payphone/hotspot on your block, would this actually allow you to cancel your internet and exclusively use this for your Wifi? (Article says 150ft range...)
>Administration officials framed the move as an extension of Mr. de Blasio’s focus on inequality. Maya Wiley, counsel to the mayor, said low-income people, particularly blacks and Latinos, relied disproportionately on cellphone browsing to get online. And data charges can add up.
Free wi-fi is great and all but I feel that programs that mostly benefit the upper middle class are constantly being passed off by politicians as benefiting the lower class. From what I see, smart phones ownership definitely skews to the wealthy, although higher for African American and Hispanic [0]. Is there something I'm missing here?
It skews to the young: 83% for ages 18-29. That's a hard figure to ignore (although you HAVE to to make your point). Seems like for older people they own smartphones if they're in careers which might require one (e.g. office work, where college+ and $50K+ are more common).
For young people almost "everyone" owns a smartphone. Plus the cost is fairly low if you avoid the big four carriers and buy direct[0]. Smartphones aren't "premium" anymore and haven't been for quite a few years. Yet some people continue to talk about them like they are (and "HDTVs" and "cable").
High-end smartphone ownership for sure. But you can buy a craptacular Android phone that runs whatever Android 4.0 is and runs OK, just slow, for under $100. My understanding was that the smaller CPU and memory load of Android 5.0 Lollipop was partly a response to this trend. And of course you can get some sort of netbook for $200, $250. If you have the savvy to buy used (perhaps with the help of a friend) then your options get wider again.
No. I'm sick of these comments.
Articles from sources like Washington Post, NYT, and The Economist, which are often high quality, constantly get branded with some form of this complaint.
It is so easy to avoid the paywall: any major browser's incognito mode will do it,
and you can just subscribe. Magazines and newspaper subscriptions are often on sale for free or extremely low prices.
There are some walls that suck - Quora comes to mind - but when it's this easy to read the article, you're just adding noise by complaining.
They're trivial to bypass for the technically literate, which group I'd expect every HN reader to belong to. If you can't be arsed, fine, but don't waste your time writing annoyed comments about it either.
I don't have an NYT subscription or use any sort of workaround to access NYT pages, so I am not a member of any 'club'. You can view something like 20 stories a month before they ask you to subscribe, and I don't feel bad about posting an interesting story from a site that uses a paywall once or twice month.
10 stories a month. Also, even though you may only post one or two as you say from these sites, others do the same adding to that total E.G. wsj.com Which doesn't allow viewing at all unless you browse in from a search engine or subscribe.
> and I don't feel bad about posting an interesting story from a site that uses a paywall once or twice month.
I don't want you to feel bad, I just want you to know that I think that it's obnoxious, and not very considerate towards others to expect them to bob-and-weave through pay-walls.
> You can view something like 20 stories a month before they ask you to subscribe
Sure, that's how it is at the moment. Next month it'll be ten views, a few months after 3 views, and so on, (effectively further reducing the archival worth of news publication links)
Also, how do you know that I haven't yet exceeded my monthly allotment?
Posting paid content excludes the poor who either lack the know-how to do so or refuse to side-step the pay-walls from discussion of the article until someone either copy/pastes the important parts or a freely available source is linked, and I just want people to be aware of that.
Wait, you think people shouldn't post and discuss interesting stuff because you're to cheap to help underwrite the (very reasonable) cost of decent journalism?!
I'm sorry, but this is a news site. People come here to read and discuss relevant news. And while this may come as news to you, those articles don't write themselves for free.
You want to lecture somebody on etiquette? Go find a journalist and tell them how "rude" they're being by expecting payment for their work. Find their editors, while you're at it, and see if they're willing to discuss their "entitlement issues". If you haven't had your head ripped off maybe you can tell us how the conversation went.
(i.e. if you have 2 valid forms of ID proving you live 4 blocks from the hot spot and you are willing to spend 5 minutes filling out web forms and you only want to visit one of 50 sanctioned websites and you are willing to receive notification emails and your computer is Windows 8.1 but doesn't have the incompatible service pack installed that the java applet crashes on and you happen to catch it on a day when it's working and you can get the webbeams login url to redirect properly and you don't accidentally scroll down while the login page is loading and you click through the screens about the new street sweeping schedule you will be able to browse the web for 17.5 minutes.)