We will be installing of the Brooklyn Bridge Park on this Monday, May 22 at 5:30pm. Please email me (dana at nycwireless.net) directly if you are interested in participating. We will be installing the hotspot plus 2 antennas, doing some spectrum analysis, and also checking the coverage of the hotspot in the park.
We need your help to make this project a success, so please try to help out with this installation.
Here are some news stories from yesterday’s hearing on the NYC Parks Department and their plans for hotspots.
NYCwireless, a nonprofit group that did the technical work for those projects, has also set up networks at Union Square, Tompkins Square and Stuyvesant Cove Parks, and is building a network at Brooklyn Bridge Park this year.
So far, the city’s own efforts have paled compared with those achievements by private groups.
New York Sun: New York Parks To Offer Free Web Access
For the many New Yorkers seemingly locked to their laptops, the expansion of wireless access cannot come fast enough. But one suggestion at yesterday’s hearing – taking Wi-Fi to the city’s beaches – had even a leading wireless advocate issuing words of caution: “I think it’s a wonderful idea, but you have to be careful about getting sand in your laptop,” the executive director of NYCwireless, Dana Spiegel, said.
Newsday: Wireless Internet access urged for NYC parks
We believe that free Internet is an amenity and should be provided to all New Yorkers just as grass, trees and benches are,” said Dana Spiegel, executive director of NYCwireless, a nonprofit organization that has worked with business groups and park boosters to set up wireless Internet access in several parks and open spaces.
New York Post: CENTRAL PK. TO BECOME A WEB SITE
WNBC: Techies Urge Wireless Web Access In NYC Park
WCBS: Wi-Fi Internet Access In NYC Parks?
SILive: Wireless Internet access urged for NYC parks
Spotlighting News: New York Central Park With WiFi
All Headline News: Deadline Set For Wireless Internet In Parks
Technology Review: Wi-Fi Coming to Parks in New York City
also published on Wireless Community blog
The New York Daily News published a poorly researched article today about new Wi-Fi hotspots in New York City. They fail to mention the dozen or so parks that NYCwireless has already helped “light up”. Here’s the letter I have written to the newspaper in response:
The article “Wi-Fi umbrella to cover 10 city parks” by Austin Fenner on Sept. 13 claims that New Yorkers will “soon be able to surf (the Internet) in city parks.”
This has already been the case for the past 4 years. NYCwireless, a non-profit organization that advocates and enables the growth of free, public wireless Internet access in New York City and surrounding areas, has worked since 2001 to bring free public Wi-Fi to city parks and other public spaces.
Working with other sponsoring organizations such as the Alliance for Downtown New York and the Union Square Partnership, local businesses, and residents, NYCwireless has helped bring Wi-Fi to Bryant Park, Union Square Park, City Hall Park, Tomkins Square Park, the South Street Seaport, and Bowling Green Park, among others. NYCwireless also works with other non-profits, such as Community Access, to bring free Wi-Fi to underserved and underprivileged city residents in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx.
These Wi-Fi hotspots have been in use by many New Yorkers and visitors to the city for the past 3-4 years, and have been featured in numerous newspaper and magazine articles.
For those of you who were unable to attend this week’s meeting, I wanted to provide brief updates on some projects:
NYCwireless is collaborating with Open Resource Group to launch a site called New York Done Right. Its basically an organizational tool where we can work through projects and fund-raise, and is intended to support bottom-up organizational process. You can use it at http://www.nydoneright.com. It’s far from perfect and complete, so if you have comments/suggestions about the site, please just email me.
A member of The Friends of Dag Hammarskjold Plaza has contacted us about the possibility of getting that park lit up with wireless. We are starting the process of organizing about this. We will be using our new project management tools here. Please contact Ben Serebin if you’d like to get involved
We’re just about ready to launch this. Please keep an eye out for an email from Rob Kelley. We’re still looking for people who would like to host WifiDog Nodes!
There’s no update on this project, unfortunately. I’ve sent some inquiries to the organization from which we’re waiting for approval, but haven’t heard back yet. They are still working through the approval process.
American’s for Informed Democracy, NYU Chapter, is working on a grant proposal to help deploy lots of hotspots in the Village, around the NYU area. We’re working with them to help them with the technology aspect, and once they get the grant, there will be lots of work to do to get the WifiDog nodes configured and distributed for this project.
NYCwireless 