Logging onto the Internet for free at many New York City parks has become another casualty of the financial crisis.
The vendor, WiFi Salon, which won the contract from the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation in 2004 to wire 10 parks in four boroughs, including Central Park, quietly shutdown in October due to lack of financing and is in the process of removing equipment. The contract expired Sept. 30, and it wasn’t financially feasible for WiFi Salon to continue on its own.
“We didn’t have the sponsor to pay to continue the network. It was too costly,” said Marshall Brown, WiFi Salon’s founder. “It is tough to find the means to build it out when the city is in budgetary straits, and Wall Street has evaporated.”
Brown isn’t giving up on the business of free Wi-Fi. He has launched Wired Towns, a firm that partners with Business Improvement Districts that want to offer free Wi-Fi in their neighborhoods. He’s already wired Union Square and is talking to other BIDs.
For now, free Wi-Fi has ceased at seven formerly wired locations inside Central Park, two locations inside Prospect Park, and at Washington Square Park, Battery Park, Riverside Park, Van Cortlandt, Orchard Beach, Pelham Bay Park and Corona-Flushing Meadows.
Bryant Park’s independent Wi-Fi network is still up and running.
“New York City lost a great resource in WiFi Salon,” said Dana Spiegel, NYCWireless, a nonprofit that works with other local community groups to run free Wi-Fi hotspots around Manhattan. It operates a dozen so far. “It’s a tough business to be in. You have operating and staff costs,” added Spiegel, who was the first to blog about the park Wi-Fi shutdown.
In a statement, the Department of Parks and Recreation said the city will soon unveil “a series of digital inclusion initiatives focused on expanding access to, and adoption of, broadband technology, including service in parks across the city.”
Brown says it would have taken $400,000 to $500,000 to maintain the parks’ Wi-Fi network. The company had struggled to find financial backing for the networks from the start. When WiFi Salon launched its first network in Battery Park in June 2005, Brown said the company had to eat the $200,000 expense.
“Sponsorships are tough to get in any climate,” he said. In his latest venture, he is counting on BIDs to invest in Wi-Fi. Wired Towns has partnered with Altai Technologies, a Hong Kong-based outdoor Wi-Fi provider, and has been reaching out to the city’s 59 BIDS as well as other cities across the nation.
Last year, the Union Square Partnership agreed to work with Wired Towns to relaunch the Wi-Fi network in Union Square Park and its surrounding streets. The Union Square Wi-Fi network allows up to 250 users to log on to the Web at the same time, noted Mr. Brown, who declined to disclose the how much he is charging the BID and the cost of the project. He said the network will be up as long as the Union Square Partnership wants to fund it, and expects two more BIDs in the city to launch similar networks this quarter.
In addition, Brown hopes to tap into the online ad market as another revenue stream. For instance, the welcome page on users of the Union Square network could be served ads or coupons from local establishments, he explained.
“Even in tough time people will invest in public WiFi to help local businesses market themselves, lower telecom costs and help the digital divide,” he said.
Amanda Fung is a reporter for Crain’s New York Business, a sister publication to RCR Wireless News. Both publications are owned by Crain Communications Inc.
