Solving the Digital Divide in NY City: Give Rich People 5G in Areas that Are Saturated with 5G; Keep Screwing Low-Income Areas.

There is a hearing of a NYC Community Board to discuss putting in the LinkNYC 5G wireless services, and in this case it will go into areas for very wealthy citizens who are already saturated by cell states, even though these Link5G monstrosities were supposed to be put in to first replace the original public payphones, and give low-incomes areas free Wi-Fi — claiming this will solve the Digital Divide.

The opening graphic displays a studio apt that is renting at $3,695 a month and $4,830 for a one bedroom on locations near these proposed Link5G build. We wonder if they are getting free Wifi? (apartments.com)

The Super-hype includes:

“Link5G will expand the free LinkNYC Wi-Fi network and bring mobile broadband and fiber infrastructure directly to underserved communities.”

AT&T stated, “In New York City, a robust 5G network will help fight the digital divide and boost our economy — which is why we are working with City government and beyond to explore every option to roll out more 5G nodes as quickly as possible”.

“5G” has been a failed wireless service, and anyone who stares at their 5G phone knows that much of the time it is using 4GLTE or is on Wi-Fi. Announced in 2016 as a replacement to a fiber optic wire, the crap can’t go long distances, requires a direct ‘line of sight’, and has trouble with buildings and even trees. And it is not 1Gbps in both directions like fiber to the home can deliver; it has been tracked as slower than 4GLTE — the previous ‘wireless wonder’ in many cases.

As we predicted in 2016, it is a marketing term that has been used as to create a ‘bait and switch’ with wireline fiber network. In fact, the FiOS brand is now including wireless, but the advertisements fail to mention this

• Verizon’s FiOS Home Internet Is Now a Deceptive Fixed Wireless Bait and Switch. 2024
• Verizon Wireless’s 5G Deployment is a 1 Gig Fairy Tale. January 7th, 2016

Hype-dripping from the press releases aside, as we will discuss, Link5G has been a screw up of major proportions and this current proposed deployment shows this is a total scam, as we’ve been tracking these failed attempts to solve the digital divide. This Link5G is just the next iteration, claiming that this plan is for getting low-income families high-speed broadband that they could use, for free for a limited time, or pay a small amount or that the prices were in fact, at fair and reasonable rates.

More Wireless Antennas than Cockroaches?

Here is a map of a 3 mile radius around one of the new proposed sites. There are over 6,226 actual wireless antennas in use, 533 separate cell towers — — in a 3 mile radius in downtown Manhattan NY.

These are the proposed locations for these wireless deployments. The center points of the footprints of these antennas are located at 90 Wall Street, 88 Pine Street, 75 South Street, 110 William Street, 8 Spruce Street, 66 Harrison Street and 100 N. Moore Street. The opening graphic features a studio and 1 bedroom on these streets.

These Areas Are Over-Saturated with Cell Sites and Antennas.

We decided to see just how badly these areas need more wireless services — and the answer is: This appears to be one of the most super-saturated areas in the United States and it needs more antennas and cell sites as it does an invasion of cockroaches. The 3 mile area from one of the proposed installation locations has 6,226 has antennas vs, say the city of Dallas, TX, that has only 2,601 antennas, or DC, which has 2,780.

NYC 3-MILE RADIUS: 533 towers, 6,226 Antennas

With this as a starting point we just used the same web tool to do different cities in the US. And this area of Manhattan NY, not only beat out other cities, the 3 mile coverage dwarfs Dallas or San Diego, or even the District of Columbia.

Towers and Antennas for Selected US Cities, 2024

• 211 towers and 1164 antennas within a 3.0 mile radius of Austin, TX,
• 68 towers and 2601 antennas within a 3.0 mile radius of Dallas, TX,
• 583 towers and 2780 antennas within a 3.0 mile radius of District of Columbia,
• 46 towers and 545 antennas within a 3.0 mile radius of Worcester, MA.

Source: https://www.antennasearch.com/

But this overkill — an attempt by the wireless companies to sell products and get government help, pales to the under-performance of Link5G to solve the Digital Divide — and worse, all efforts should be focused on city residents and businesses being harmed through a lack of fiber optic broadband, and hyper-inflated rates due to monopoly-duopoly controls — not some wireless kludge. We’ll get back to these issues in a moment.

Digital Desert, Digital Divide, And More City and Telco Garbage.

This is the hype that has been used over the last decade to claim that these wireless additions would solve the Digital Divide, and the presentation has pages of statistics about — developed during the pandemic, to show just how many families either don’t have, can’t get or can’t afford a basic broadband connection.

The Backstory is a Tale of a Failure to Provide Service that Harmed Low-Income Families. (From our filings)

In 2014, CityBridge signed a franchise agreement that said it would install 7,500 operational kiosks within a decade. The LinkNYC service replaces the city’s network of 9,000 to 13,000 payphones, a contract which expired in October 2014. In 2011, the last available data showed that there were 27,000,000 calls in NYC’s payphones, and while some pay phones were not being used, others had heavy usage but were not kept active. (NOTE: This was the last accounting we had available at the time of our 2023 filing.) As of July 2017, there are 920 Links citywide; eventually, there will be 7,500 Links installed in the New York metropolitan area; the company has installed just 1,816 by July 2019,

There is No Broadband WiFi Internet For ALL

Even after this next round of build outs, because the wireless technology being used only has had only a small coverage area, a radius of about 450 feet, there will be gaping holes in the roll out.

And yet, LinkNYC claims it will leave ‘underserved’ communities with critical access to broadband connectivity. This is from a company that only rolled out a fraction of their required kiosks — and the ones that did show up on the maps were in wealthy NYC neighborhoods.

In 2023, the last report available did not raise expectations that

HALT NYC COUNCIL LINKNYC 5G; INVESTIGATE VERIZON NY 2022 ANNUAL REPORT

On June 7th, 2023, the NY City Council held a hearing on the LinkNYC Kiosks and the addition of 5G “cantenna”, throughout the city, proclaiming that these would ‘solve the Digital Divide and give free Wifi to underserved areas in New York City. What we have here is a major wireless bait-and-switch, where the City, over and over, made claims that giving free WiFi to low-income areas would be the best solution —

Click to read the Filing: IRREGULATORS CITY COUNCIL completed

In New York City, Verizon has commitments to upgrade 100% of the city’s residential locations, and this was never completed. Moreover, the City never examined how the Verizon local service and wired customers were charged billions since 2005, as part of the state plans to bring FiOS to the state.

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“Solving the Digital Divide” has been the well meaning battle-cry of municipalities and politicians since the 1990s, and at every turn, more recently, from Mayor Bloomberg or de Blasio, or Adams, wireless is always hyped up as the substitute for a fiber optic future- — regardless of whether there were commitments to upgrade the city or state by replacing the existing copper wires with a fiber optic one — which can supply a great deal more capacity. But, wireless or Wifi is also a kludge, not only because wireless requires a fiber optic wire to work, but because wireless has lots of issues, from the fact that 5G can’t handle large distances from the antennas, or worse, it also requires a ‘line of sight’ — i.e., the signal can have problems; even from shrubs or when there is another building in-between.

In Part 2 we discuss how LinkNYC has been a disaster on so many levels that it is hard to count them all. First, the original plan was to replace the existing payphones with these monolith kiosks, but there was only a partial deployment — about 25–30%. This left 60- 80% of the payphones not replaced and millions of callers were left without basic public phone service. Next, when done, there will only be Swiss-cheese coverage, because the range of Wifi is so limited using 5G. The maps provided clearly show that 70–80% of the supposed coverage areas with the upgraded WiFi will still not be able to get the service. But the real subplot is worse. The story told is only the Wifi-public face, and it leaves out that these cantennas were designed to have wireless carriers rent space for retail 5G and other services and moreover, this plan is being renewed with the claim that the City will lose advertising revenues and franchise fees — It is not solve the Digital Divide. And, on top of all of this, there has been a failure to pay over $70 million in fees to the City, and some penalties have been applied.

And how do Verizon’s FiOS deployment requirements for NY City relate to the wireless cantennas? Verizon was supposed to have 100% coverage of NY City’s residential locations — and thus, there are no ‘underserved’ customers — as everyone in the 5 boroughs should have been able to at least get a high-speed service. And while they may not be able to afford this connection, then the real question should be — why are prices so outrageously priced? This is especially a critical question because prices are supposed to be ‘fair and reasonable’, because the construction was being subsidized by rate increases on wired services, and most importantly, if there were fiber optic wires in these underserved areas, where are they? Why weren’t they put into use?

And why were New Yorkers charged for services that they never received? But, it is much larger and important series of questions that must be asked, because the outcomes could help to upgrade all of New York State, and impact NY City — Over the last decade, with our experts, we uncovered that the financial books have been manipulated and have made the entire public utility appear unprofitable — when in fact, the investigations and actions could helped to generate billions in funds to upgrade the entire state — not through government subsidies but through halting cross-subsidies and other financial machinations that have been left to continue and overcharge New Yorkers, as well as America.

Part 3 Supplies a basic Timeline of the major attempts by former Mayor Bloomberg and de Blasio to have wireless and Wifi helped to solve the Digital Divide, and they all mostly tanked or did not do the job. Truth is, wireless has been a bait and switch for the last 3 decades as we have documented over and over. In fact, as we point out, Verizon’s current FiOS Broadband Internet Home Service is currently a ploy where the fixed wireless (FWA) service is being ‘mushed’ to blur the line of a fiber optic wired service and this inferior wireless service.

Part 4: The Fiber Optic Future We Never Got. In Part 4 we lay out that Verizon failed over and over to deliver on fiber optic deployments that were to take place since the 1990’s, including FiOS, the FTTP, Fiber to the Home service, in 2005, but it is important for the City to realize that there is both a NYC FiOS franchise, as well as issues and commitments made to the rest of NY State, — impacting the prices of all services, from wireline to wireless, as well as the expenses and construction budgets, or the charging of customers for the construction. New York Telephone, then NYNEX, Bell Atlantic and now Verizon New York had started in 1992 to claim that it was going to replace the existing copper wires with fiber optics and was able to get deregulation at every turn. In 2005, Verizon claimed it would be deploying FiOS fiber optic broadband to the home and NY State granted massive rate increases on wired customers to fund this “massive deployment of fiber optics” — i.e., low-income families, seniors, rural customers, and everyone else who had service, have all had a continuous series of rate increases, known as ‘harvesting’.

By 2011, Verizon announced it was no longer going to continue to roll out FiOS, and it appears that it would illegally transfer the utility construction budgets to wireless. Truth be told, (and documented) Verizon had no plans to upgrade the rural areas post the year 2011 — or the low-income areas, — as this was told to the investor community, but not the public. This has meant that wired customers have been illegally charged for the build out of the wireless networks, for over a decade. and Verizon diverted the utility construction budgets to fund their wireless build out. — because it made them more profits.

How did Verizon get away with this? Verizon’s FiOS FTTP, fiber the premises, has put in based on using “Title II”, Common Carrier network and therefore is part of the state telecommunications public utility. This directly contradicts Verizon’s statements that ‘Title II’ harmed investments. As we show — it was the investment mechanism to charge local phone customers thousands of dollars extra per line. Thus, on one level, Verizon scammed the State, on another Verizon also was harming New York City.

Part 5: Supplies our letter to former Mayor de Blasio discussing the fact that Verizon NY had not fulfilled its obligations to properly upgrade NYC to FiOS. The Massive Financial Accounting Scandal Must be Dealt with.

Part 6: Supplies our Letter to former Mayor de Blasio: New York City Must Call for a Halt to the Billion + Dollars of Cross-Subsidies and Overcharging by Verizon NY, the Public Telco Utility. All of these actions were done through the manipulation of the accounting rules where the entire state public utility is being dismantled — and using these cooked formulas, has turned the state’s critical infrastructure into a cash machine for the use of Verizon’s other subsidiaries, including wireless.

The Verizon NY 2022 Annual Report, (spreadsheet) published on May 26th, 2023, by the NY Public Service Commission — and it shows massive financial manipulations and cross-subsidies that has been going on for decades. And with decades of analysis and documented:

We demand an immediate investigation by the NY City Council, the NY Attorney General’s Office, and the NY State Public Service Commission of over a billion dollars in questionable and potentially illegal cross subsidies in just Verizon NY, and just for the year 2022. When halted, this could supply enough funds to build out a fiber optic network throughout the State — as these monies were diverted to illegally fund the company’s wireless mobile and now fixed wireless networks. And it would dramatically lower rates, as the subsidiaries that got a free ride will have to pay market prices. And all of this is visible in this Verizon NY 2022 Annual Report, and it is also relevant to this City Council inquiry for multiple reasons.

There are many consequences dealing with the Digital Divide,

First, this has allowed Verizon to seriously inflate all prices in New York, but it also impacts America, because the underlying parts of the networks, known as backhaul, (the data lines that go to the cell sites or the banks, have excessive profits, and thus all wireline and wireless prices in the US are 5–20 times more expensive than overseas.

Worse, because Verizon never fully upgrades the networks to fiber and thus let the networks deteriorate, there was no competition to lower prices — and because of this, the cable companies can add made up fees to inflate prices.

On top of all this, there is a defacto agreement with the cable companies that gave them the wired-broadband and cable networks — and not have direct competition, and Verizon kept wireless. In fact, Spectrum wireless service is reselling Verizon Wireless. — Collusion and not competition, as Spectrum is bundling this with their other services, giving it monopoly advantages for wireline- high-speed broadband, and Verizon for wireless.

On top of all of this, there have been campaigns to rewrite history and ‘common wisdom’ — which over time became the history. And with institutional amnesia, we now find that no one understands what happened in their state with broadband, and Verizon (or the other state public utilities in the other states) is never even mentioned in the state broadband agencies’ reports. Verizon has been able to hide in plain sight and, like diabolical character in a Harry Potter movie, “Voldemort”, Verizon is ‘the person you do not name’.

Part 7: Four Snapshots — America’s prices being out of control compared to overseas countries; we also include a short summary of the Verizon NY 2022 Anneal Report.

• Verizon’s Wireless Overcharging per GB, 7,400%-to-65,000% vs OverseasPrices.
• America’s ‘Triple Play’ Prices Overcharged up to $175.00 Per Month or More — Over $2,000.00 Per Year
• Just Released for Public Review: The Verizon NY 2022 Annual Report Shows a Massive, Corrupt, Financial Accounting Scheme.
• Where Did the Verizon NY construction money, charged to local phone customers, go?

The IRREGULATORS is an independent, consortium of senior telecom experts, analysts, forensic auditors, and lawyers who are former senior staffers from the FCC, state advocate and Attorneys General Office experts and lawyers, as well as former telco consultants. Members of the group have been working together, in different configurations, since 1999.