Customer Experience

New York’s LinkNYC kiosks to receive 5G upgrades despite critical state audit

Image courtesy of Link.

August 31, 2021

The digital LinkNYC Wi-Fi kiosks that provide free phone service in New York City will have 5G installations next year, despite a negative report released last month by the New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, according to a statescoop report.

DiNapoli claimed in a July 30 report that the city's department of information technology and telecommunications did not sufficiently monitor and enforce the agreement with CityBridge, a consortium of technology companies, including the collection of almost $70 million, that the required number of Link kiosks were installed, that the kiosks were activated by the required time frames, that a Gigabit Center was established in each of the city's five boroughs and that liquidated damages were collected for late activation.

The city entered into a 15-year agreement in 2014 with the consortium to replace its aging network of public pay phones with kiosks that provide free, high-speed Internet access and free phone service, a touchscreen interface to access city services and free cell phone charging and digital advertising and public service announcements.

On Sept. 17, 2018, the city entered into a one-year agreement with the consortium to suspend its required annual payment, but when the forbearance period ended, the consortium did not resume payments, according to the audit.

By July 20, 2020, 3, 153 structures were to be operational, but as of May 2020, only 1,869 kiosks were installed and only 1,816 were activated.

The report called for the correction of these issues including the collection of revenue and interest for payments owed.