New York City’s Downtown Alliance
has turned to modern technology — Wi-Fi ‘hotspots’ — to lure business to
one of the oldest business districts.
On Friday (May 1), the Alliance is expected to launch three public
802.11-compliant public network nodes to give away high-speed wireless
Internet access and four more will go live later in May.
The first public ‘hotspot’
Park, Bowling Green Park, Rector Park later this week. Later this month,
nodes will be available in Liberty Plaza Park, Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial
Part at 55 Water Street and at South Street Seaport.
Jordan Silbert, Director of Rebuilding Initiatives for the Downtown
Alliance, told internetnews.com plans are in place for a seventh location within the Alliance’s coverage area —
roughly from City Hall to the Battery, from the East River to West Street.
The ‘hotspots’ are being built and maintained by wireless networks
consulting firm Emenity, which is a spin-off of the non-profit NYC Wireless community group. NYC
Wireless was among the pioneers of open wireless ‘hotspots’ in
public spaces throughout the New York region.
Emenity spokesman Anthony Townsend told internetnews.com the
rollout of the ‘hotspots’ downtown would create a Wi-Fi enabled zone
“anywhere within a five-minute walk in Lower Manhattan.
Emenity, which also built a Wi-Fi ‘hotspot’ in Bryant
Park on 42nd Street, said a single access point
would be used alongside a dedicated server at each location. Technically,
the ‘hotspot’ can allow up to 254 simultaneous connection but if usage
trends upwards, he said the company would add access points and bandwidth to
avoid overload.
“We’re expecting dozens of users in the interim, rather than hundreds so
I don’t anticipate a problem with usage,” Townsend said.
For the Downtown Alliance, which is spending about $50,000 to set up the
‘hotspots’ and less than $20,000 a year to keep them running, the returns
are immeasurable, Silbert explained.
“They (Emenity) gave us a fantastic deal on this and the benefits are
huge for our district. First of all, it’s going to be a wonderful area
amenity for downtown residents, workers and visitors,” he said.
More importantly, Silbert public networks will be an “innovative way of
generating business for area retailers and activity for area attractions.”
Once the networks are up and running, anyone with a wireless-enabled
laptop or device can sit in one of the area parks and access the signal to
log on for an unlimited time.
“It’s been tough in lower Manhattan in the last 18 months. We’re looking
at using cutting edge technology to help generate interest for the area.
This is a powerful demonstration that lower Manhattan is at the cutting edge
and is open for business. It’s important to remind people that we have the
most robust powerful infrastructure anywhere, especially after the
destruction of September 11,” he added.
Last year, the Alliance installed an 802.11b
base station at 25 Broadway to power the Bowling Green Park ‘hotspot and
Silbert said the success of that test led to the decision to expand the
networks throughout the Alliance’s coverage area.
He said the locations were strategically chosen to allow “anyone to walk
to a ‘hotspot’ within five minutes from any point below Chambers
Street.”
For Emenity, the Downtown Alliance deal adds a big-name client to its
roster for wireless network consulting services. The six-employee firm is
avoiding the subscription-based Wi-Fi services — adopted by Starbucks and
cafes nationwide — in favor of free public networks that “differentiate
real estate space,” Townsend explained.
“We’re promoting a different kind of business model for Wi-Fi. Instead
of subscriptions from subscribers, we see value in providing easy to use
wireless networks,” he said. For the client, the value lies in modernizing
real estate space to offer high-speed wireless access.
In terms of what it costs to put free Wi-Fi in a building lobby, it’s a
trivial amount of money. But it does differentiate the building as a place
to do business,” Townsend said.
To install, run and manage a Wi-Fi ‘hotspot’ (a single access point and
including bandwidth), Emenity charges less than $20,000 a year, Townsend
said, noting that the company was looking at a wider variety of spaces
beyond the coffee shops and hotel lobbies.
“We’re at the beginning of a very large transformation of the way people
use use computers. Using a laptop or a PDA in a mobile environment is a lot
different from using the desktop PC. With Wi-Fi, it’s about communication.
It’s about finding bits of information on the road and not about doing
research and staying online for a very long time,” he explained.
While the Downtown Alliance’s public Wi-Fi networks is being hypes as the
“largest free wireless zone” in the country, it’s certainly not the first.
On the West Coast, the Bay Area Wireless Users Group (BAWUG) has been busy promoting wireless use
for the Greater San Francisco Bay Area.
