Poor Reporting by the BBC About NYC’s Wireless Lamp Post Licensing Deal

In his article titled New York set for citywide wireless, Matt Wells talks cautiously about the future of wireless technologies in New York City, however he seems to have a misunderstanding about what’s actually happening here, and mixing up two separate and different wireless initiatives and futures.

The Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications of the City of New York (DoITT) has indeed licensed 18,000 city lamp posts to 6 telecom companies for wireless use. However, the purpose of this deal is to enhance cell phone coverage in the city, and to bring added telecom capacity to these networks.

The licenses, while not restrictive in the airwaves that can be used, are not, as Mr. Wells seems to erroneously represent, intended to build a city-wide Wi-Fi data network similar to the ones that we, NYCwireless, have helped to build in many public parks and places in Manhattan.

Certainly, health risks should be considered. But most, if not all, of the antennas that will be deployed on the city’s lamp posts operate in cell phone frequencies, not Wi-Fi and Microwave frequencies. Such a plan is not like putting thousands of microwave ovens outside of your bedroom door, operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Neither will the lamp post antenna deployment extend Wi-Fi coverage throughout the city. To accomplish such a feat would require an entirely different strategy on the part of NYC DoITT, and would also best include those members of the local community, like NYCwireless, who are already helping to provide such free service.