Wi-Fi On Steroids

You might well have noticed that in a world where most everyone turns to their Smartphone first to start their search, there is a long unmet need for ubiquitous Wi-Fi. Sure you already know that your traditional favorite hangouts such as Starbucks and the like have Free Wi-Fi. But what happens when you walk out the door? If you are like most people with a mobile device in their pocket, that is when the data service meter from your cell phone provider starts running and the bill starts to rise. You can’t possibly function (at least efficiently) if you are always on the hunt for a Wi-Fi hotspot. There has to be a better way.

Interestingly, the solution may be forthcoming from the last place you might have thought to look. Do you remember the traditional payphones of yesteryear? Yes, payphones, you know those funny boxes with the glass walls and doors that had a telephone that you had to (gasp!) feed coins into to make a call? Well you might have well noticed that in quite a few metropolitan areas out there, the payphone facilities are still in place, even if the phones are not.

So what? Here’s what: the City of New York is on a quest to transform those old style payphone boxes into a city wide Wi-Fi network. As a matter of fact, not too long ago, the very first such Wi-Fi from a payphone location was installed in Manhattan. In its current form, the Wi-Fi hotspot is a 9 foot tall structure planted where an old style phone booth used to stand. According to press reports, this is the first of 7,500 such planned local Wi-Fi hotspots to be placed around the city. According to the plans, this network of Wi-Fi hotspots will deliver fast and Free Wi-Fi service, new street phones with free local calling and even a bank of ports specially engineered to charge mobile devices.

You may well recall that city wide Wi-Fi was much touted a few years back. Unfortunately, the excitement faded away and to date there has been no city wide Wi-Fi network installed. That being said, from the looks of the things, New York City is determined to make this happen. Once proven successful in the Big Apple, you might well expect to see other metropolitan areas implementing similar such plans.