A Commercial Solution to Bridge the Digital Divide
Sidewalk Labs recently formed a new company called Intersection to bring digital experiences into physical urban spaces. Its first product, LinkNYC, will revolutionize the way we engage on the sidewalks of cities. Working in close partnership with the City of New York, LinkNYC has begun replacing an archaic network of public pay phones with a network of 7,500 data and communication hubs throughout New York City. The elegant and iconic kiosks will deliver to residents and visitors free gigabit Wi-Fi, video and voice calling, and access to emergency and other city services. Discussions are underway to bring Link to other cities.
LinkNYC illustrates Sidewalk’s approach: Work hand-in-hand with cities to craft novel solutions that address big urban problems while still generating a fair return to a commercial partner.
LinkNYC’s free
gigabit WiFi is here,
and it is glorious.
Engadget
LinkNYC coverage across New York City
Link for Citizens
Over 25% of New Yorkers lack high-speed broadband at home. LinkNYC will address this glaring digital inequality by making the fastest public Wi-Fi in the world freely available to millions of people for the first time. Many more will be able to reduce their spending on data plans.
Link for Cities
The Link network will be delivered at no cost to taxpayers and will generate more than $500 million in revenue to the city during the first 12 years. Links will help New York City deliver city services and will generate anonymized, aggregate data that can be used to manage the city more effectively.
Link for Commerce
Links help national and local businesses reach customers using an entirely new model for delivering digital outdoor ads that are highly relevant and interactive.
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