[tab name=’News’]
New York City is set to revolutionise its increasingly unused public payphone spaces by transforming the iconic street side boxes into Wi-Fi hotspots for free Wi-Fi access.
The hotspots will be completely ad-free and open to the locals and public, and will be rolled out across 10 of New York’s Boroughs throughout Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan, with plans to take the scheme to more of the city’s 13,000 payphones if the trial proves successful.
Payphones across the western world have seen a huge decline in use over the past 15 years due to the rise and dominance of the Mobile Phone (or Cell for our US cousins), which has caused the use of the payphone to decline steadily to virtually non-existence. The same can be said for us in the UK with our iconic red telephone boxes becoming few and far between and payphones generally serving as a makeshift urinal or shelter from the rain.
In New York the public will be able to log in for free by visiting the New York tourism website and agreeing to the Ts&Cs, and they will then be able to use of the Wi-Fi services from up to 300 feet from each hotspot.
The change is coming from Van Wagner Communications, the company who own the majority of New York’s payphones, and they are covering the $2,000 installation costs for each of the new 10 Payphones across NY.
Could you see our oh so British red payphones re-imagined as Wi-Fi Hotspots, with gaggles of tourists and touths loading maps, logging into Facebook and downloading the new Skrillex album?
Let us know your thoughts on our comments below or via our @Gadget_Helpline Twitter page or Official Facebook group.
[/tab]
[end_tabset]