New York City Expands Free Wireless, But Missed Opportunities Loom Large

New York City Mayor Eric Adams recently unveiled plans to improve public safety, housing, and the overall livability of the Big Apple.

Among them is $6 million in new funding to expand the New York Public Library’s “Neighborhood Internet” network, providing free Internet to an additional 2,000 households receiving Section 8 rental assistance.

The city hopes that the program, which is first focused on expanding Internet access to low-income households in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, will ultimately be expanded to reach as many low income NYC residents as possible. But the effort still remains a far cry from the bolder, bigger, “master plan” initiative scrapped by the Adams administration in 2022.

Low income city residents simply need a library card to connect to the NYPL network in the limited parts of the city where access is currently being offered. The NYPL has experimented with Citizens Broadband Radio Service, fixed wireless, and some fiber for connectivity. The program also provides low income users with a Chromebook with Wi-Fi access.

“For every $1,000 invested in the program, one household can secure access to the [I]nternet forever,” the city’s budget plan states. “If the Neighborhood Internet Network Initiative was expanded to serve residents in the 9th Congressional District, in partnership with the Brooklyn Public Library, it could connect an additional 2,100 households within the district.”

The city also unveiled $650 million in funding to help bolster homeless resident support, as well as continued expansion of the city’s affordable housing initiatives.

NYC still faces a major digital divide

A December study by State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli found that one in four New York City residents still lack access to a home broadband connection, usually due to affordability. Despite being a major tech hub, NYC remains dominated by a broadband duopoly consisting of Charter Communications (Spectrum) and Verizon FiOS.

Muted competition in the city has long resulted in spotty coverage of next-generation access, slow speeds, high prices, and substandard customer service. Efforts to get both companies to improve has at times been a tortuous affair, resulting in a major city legal battle with Verizon and state threats to kick Charter out of the city entirely for lying to regulators.

DiNapoli’s study found that out of 18 NYC neighborhoods with the highest share of households with income below the federal poverty level, 13 also had the highest shares without broadband. 10 such neighborhoods had the highest shares that access the internet using cellular data plans only, with the lack of affordable access worst in The Bronx.

“Affordability is one of the key determinants of whether households purchase high-speed internet service,” the study found. “The boroughs face significant differences in broadband prices, with the price for service at download speeds closest to the 100 Mbps standard being highest in the Bronx and lowest in Manhattan.”

Other reports have found that incumbent monopolies not only avoid upgrading lower income parts of U.S. urban markets (a practice known as redlining), but they often charge minority and low-income residents more money for slower broadband speeds than more affluent, less diverse neighborhoods. New York City is no exception.

Community-backed efforts have popped up across New York City in a bid to bridge the digital divide and provide access to discounted or free wireless service.

That includes both the volunteer-dominated NYC Mesh and People’s Choice – a collaborative joint effort created by former frustrated former union employees of Charter Communications (Spectrum).

New York State also recently greenlit $13.1 in state Connect ALL program funding to help provide gigabit-capable fiber and Wi-Fi to select parts of Manhattan and The Bronx in partnership with private ISP Flume.

A shadow of its former self  

While expansion of the NYPL wireless program is indisputably helpful, the Adams administration has been widely criticized for scrapping the previous administration’s far more ambitious and popular plan to build a municipally-owned fiber and wireless network, something activists say could have had a much broader beneficial impact across NYC.

New York City’s original Internet Master Plan was unprecedented and ambitious. The plan featured a pilot program designed to bring affordable broadband to 45,000 residents of New York City Housing Authority buildings, a major streamlining of broadband deployment bureaucracy, and several initiatives prioritizing subscriber privacy and choice.

But at the heart of the proposal was a plan to spend $156 million to create citywide fiber and wireless open access networks in underserved portions of the city that would be open to all competitors. The plan specifically targeted the most underserved parts of the city, given officials estimated it would cost $2.1 billion to deploy such a network city wide.

That original plan could have gone a long way in forcing regional dominant NYC area monopolies like Verizon and Charter to expand access via competition, driving down costs for all New Yorkers–not just the most vulnerable.

In its place, Adams created the Big Apple Connect program, a partnership with Charter Communications Spectrum and Altice (Optimum) that promised to deliver free broadband to 300,000 New Yorkers living in more than 200 New York City Housing Authority developments by the end of 2023 (city data indicates there’s 122,000 enrolled subscribers).

Speaking to ILSR’s Chris Mitchell on Episode 525 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast, Aaron Meyerson, former Deputy CTO for the city of New York, lauded the program’s intentions but questioned its cost efficiency. He also noted that unlike the Master Plan, vendor participants don’t have to adhere to privacy, affordability, and other broadband principles.

Big Apple Connect cost NYC residents $30 million a year with a program shelf life of three years. That’s $90 million that could have gone toward open access infrastructure, which in turn could have provided permanent relief through increased competition, lowering broadband rates for millions of New Yorkers.

So while New York’s existing programs are a welcome effort, they remain a far cry from the city’s original ambition, which could drive down costs for low income residents, and set a potential leadership example for major urban municipalities looking to break the monopoly/duopoly stranglehold giant providers maintain across much of the U.S.

New York City Council Member Jennifer Gutiérrez, Chair of the NYC Committee On Technology, is one of several city officials still pushing for restoration of the city’s original master plan.

“I wanted to see [Big Apple Connect] succeed, but I said multiple times that I just don't feel confident that there is a real long-term plan,” Gutiérrez said.

“Introducing the Internet Master Plan would make it less about one plan and more about the entire city. It's not just about connecting and giving a device. It's about ensuring that they're benefiting from it. People have very valid opinions around how they feel really vulnerable to these Internet prices and companies. In a city where it costs so much to live and survive, the internet is not a luxury, it's a necessity.”

A version of this article was originally published on the website of the Institute for Local Self Reliance's Community Broadband Networks Initiative on Jan. 23, 2025, and is republished with permission.