The consortium behind New York City’s LinkNYC kiosks is ‘delinquent’ and owes the city millions
The consortium behind the LinkNYC program, originally intended to create a free Wi-Fi network across the five boroughs of New York City, owes the city tens of millions of dollars and stopped installing its kiosks in 2018, Politico reports.
The Links, as the nine-foot-tall kiosks were dubbed, were supposed to replace the city’s pay phones, providing free domestic phone calls, Wi-Fi, and USB charging ports. They had been projected to bring in an estimated $500 million in revenue for the city via advertising on the 55-inch screens. The CityBridge consortium includes Intersection, part of Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs (and yes that’s Alphabet as in Google’s parent company).
CityBridge unveiled the first of the kiosks in 2016, and has collected “millions of dollars” in advertising revenue from the kiosks installed so far, according to New York City commissioner of the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications Jessica Tisch. But the company is “delinquent” in its payments to the city, she told New York City Council. “CityBridge owes the City tens of millions of dollars, going back to [fiscal year] 19,” Tisch said. “All of this is against the backdrop of millions of dollars in advertising revenue that CityBridge has reported they received over the same time period.”
Only about 1,800 of more than 4,500 kiosks that were promised by mid-2019 have been installed, Politico reports, with the majority of the kiosks located in Manhattan. Installation has been an expensive, bumpy process that’s fallen short of expectations. Local internet access on the kiosks was revoked in 2016 after officials discovered people were using them to watch pornography in public. Privacy advocates expressed concerns about the way the kiosks could be used to collect data on users. And in 2018, the city agreed to give CityBridge more time to build out the network and share the collected ad revenue.
But Politico reports that CityBridge has tried to amend its agreement with the city in recent months. In a statement, the group said it was “working with the City of New York on a plan to address the financial viability of LinkNYC.”
Tisch told city council that the city may sue CityBridge to enforce its contract, according to Politico.
The consortium behind the LinkNYC program, originally intended to create a free Wi-Fi network across the five boroughs of New York City, owes the city tens of millions of dollars and stopped installing its kiosks in 2018, Politico reports. The Links, as the nine-foot-tall kiosks were dubbed, were supposed to…
