Google to bring free Wi-Fi to New York City

money.cnn.com

27 points·bretthellman··10 comments

The title of the article is horribly misleading. The coverage area is thirteen blocks. That's maybe 1/3 of Chelsea.

It appears to me that Google is simply sponsoring the deployment, and did not build and will not actively manage the installation. According to the coverage map [1], technical support is provided by Sky Packets, a company that plans, builds, and maintains wifi networks in municipalities. Also, the Chelsea Improvement Company's webpage [2] says: "Google's sponsorship paid for the capital cost of the network."

[1] http://www.chelseaimprovement.com/static/pdfs/wifi/CIC_Free_...

[2] http://www.chelseaimprovement.com/neighborhood/free_wifi.htm...

Not only is it just 13 blocks around that Google HQ, they somehow got a local group to pay 1/3rd of what looks like a very jacked up pricetag.

$45k a year to operate 13 blocks of wifi? Really?

IMHO that pricetag is very good. Consider backhaul costs, upgrades and other maintenance, monitoring, etc. All covered by about the equivalent of a 1/4 NY sysadmin salary.

Not sure if everyone has ridiculously high salaries in the US, or HN people always exaggerate.

If it was a fully loaded cost (ie - what the employer pays not what the employee receives) then I can believe it in a place like NYC

$180k?

Once the wifi nodes are installed, they are completely solid state so the management should be completely remote except occasional failure which is just a simple swap replacement?

So again, why $45k a year in operation?

Four nodes per block X 13 blocks = 52 units? (guessing)

I suppose 'free' also means 'unencrpyted'. Let's hope everyone has https enabled on their Facebook account.

If it's like their Mountain View coverage, there'll be a secure (WPA) option.

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