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June 10, 2011 By News Staff
AT&T will offer free Wi-Fi hot spots in 20 New York City public parks in support of a new digital road map for the metropolitan area.
Free Wi-Fi service is now live at Battery Bosque in Battery Park, a playground in Joyce Kilmer Park in the Bronx, and around the recreation center at Thomas Jefferson Park in East Harlem. More locations will be added to 17 more parks later this summer and fall across the five boroughs. AT&T has committed to the initiative for the next five years.
Last month, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Rachel Sterne, the city’s chief digital officer, unveiled a comprehensive plan to further strengthen New York City’s e-government, wireless and social media offerings. The document calls for a streamlined city Web portal, more integration of social media tools and better broadband availability in public spaces.
The 20 parks are:
The Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications has been working with private-sector carriers to bring Wi-Fi to more public spaces, Bloomberg said during an outdoor news conference at Thomas Jefferson Park on Thursday, June. Bloomberg was flanked by AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson for the announcement.
Users of the new hotspots don’t have to be an AT&T customer to use them. There are no advertisements, and log-in registration isn’t required, Bloomberg said. Users must agree to terms of service.
“This is the first project of its type that we have done in any city across the United States,” Stephenson said.
The NYC Parks and Recreation Department has set up a Web page explaining its Wi-Fi in the parks project.
You may use or reference this story with attribution and a link to
http://www.govtech.com/e-government/New-York-City-ATT-Wi-Fi-to-Public-Parks.html
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If there are no advertisements then how is this City project being paid for? Is there grant money? How is the technological problems of very tall skyscrapers being resolved?
Come on people, parks should be for outdoorsy activities and be wi-fi free, we are already surrounded with enough wi-fi & cellular broadcast towers as it is. There is no need to twit(ter) about being at the park in the nice sunshine. And do we really want or need wi-fi next to playgrounds? Especially when you consider the recent WHO report that lists cellular phones as a carcinogenic hazard (http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/05/31/who.cell.phones/index.html). Next they will be saying the same thing about wi-fi and your iPad. When you go to the park just turn it all off.