Most of the giant metal towers the city commissioned to give low-income neighborhoods access to high-speed 5G internet still lack cell phone signal, more than two years after hundreds of towers began popping up across the five boroughs.
Of the roughly 200 Link5G towers tech company CityBridge has installed since 2022, only two have 5G equipment installed, company executives said. Installation delays and waning enthusiasm for 5G technology have discouraged carriers such as Verizon from using the towers to build their own networks, experts say. The company has a contract with just one carrier to provide high-speed internet, hindering efforts to boost mobile connectivity citywide.
The 32-foot-tall structures, resembling giant tampon applicators that rise from the sidewalk, offer the same services as the LinkNYC digital billboards that appeared around the city in 2016, also installed by CityBridge. Both the original Link kiosks and the 5G towers offer free limited-range Wi-Fi, charging outlets and tablets to connect users to city services. According to data released by the company, 16 million people have used the internet at the kiosks since 2016, and the attached tablets are used to call city services thousands of times each month.
But unlike LinkNYC’s kiosks, the top of each new tower has a 12-foot-tall cylindrical mesh chamber containing five empty shelves reserved for storing equipment that companies like Verizon and T-Mobile will use to provide high-speed 5G internet service to paying customers.
CityBridge officials acknowledge that the rollout of 5G expansion has been slow, mirroring a similar experience the company had when it first installed kiosks about a decade ago.
Margaux Nee, chief administrative officer for the LinkNYC program, noted that the towers also fill other needs, such as serving as Wi-Fi hotspots.
“While cell phone service is being built out, this is taking longer than we would have liked, but it is happening. All other services continue to be there as well,” she said.
The city’s Office of Technology and Innovation had previously touted the massive structure as a key tool for “bridging the digital divide” in areas “that would benefit most from free high-speed internet, mobile broadband and fiber optic infrastructure. In addition to free Wi-Fi, the office previously said the tower would also boost cellular networks for paying customers in areas that cellphone companies might otherwise ignore in favor of wealthier parts of Manhattan.
New York City’s low-income neighborhoods lack access to reliable, high-speed internet, a problem that was exacerbated as the city’s school system rushed to bring about 1 million students online for distance learning during the pandemic. About 40% of all households lacked mobile or home broadband access, according to the city’s Internet Master Plan released in 2020.
Internet inequalities persist: Last month, about 1 million New York City households lost access to a key federal broadband subsidy that helped pay for service.
But so far, no major telecommunications carriers are using these towers.
Spectrum’s parent company, Charter Communications, and Altice, which owns Optimum, both told Gothamist that they are not leasing space on the Link5G smart poles.
“Spectrum does not install equipment on LinkNYC’s 5G towers and uses other technologies to provide mobile service to New Yorkers,” said Don Kaplan, a spokesman for Charter Communications.
Spokespeople for T-Mobile and Verizon declined to comment on whether they are renting or planning to rent space for Link5G kiosks.
The delays in leasing new Link5G towers come at the same time that telecom companies are scaling back their 5G expansion plans, and there’s no guarantee they’ll start renting towers, according to industry experts. Fifth-generation mobile networks are faster but require a denser network of signal boosters.
“[Carriers] “Soon they realized they weren’t going to make any more money,” said computer engineer Henning Schulzlin, a professor of engineering and computer science at Columbia University and a former senior official at the Federal Communications Commission..For economic reasons, technology is moving in a different direction than expected.”
He said the slow rollout of the Link5G program is in keeping with a setback in 5G installations across the industry. Crown Castle, the largest developer of wireless internet infrastructure in the U.S., recently said it would scrap thousands of 5G signal boosters it had planned to install across the country.
Schulzrinne questioned why CityBridge would build hundreds of towers without first signing a lease with at least one company.
“Building these things for speculation seems pointless, or at least risky,” he said. “Why not secure tenants before starting to build these installations, especially since they’re not popular?”
Whether telecommunications companies will start using the towers will depend on how much CityBridge plans to charge them, said Alfonso Jenkins Jr., a former deputy director for communications planning at the Department of Information Technology and Communications (now absorbed into the Innovation and Technology Agency).
“Operators have lower-cost options, such as rooftops and signage,” Jenkins said.
CityBridge officials said they expect to sign a deal with another telecommunications company “soon,” with others to follow. Executives previously told the City Council they intended to lease space to telecom companies by the end of 2023.
Ni did not disclose which telecommunications companies had signed on, which companies were testing their equipment on the two Link5G towers, how much the companies were paying, or where the two operational structures are located.
Nie blamed bureaucratic rules for the leasing delays. If carriers continue to back away from 5G, she said, the towers could be used to store equipment for future technologies in the ever-evolving telecom industry.
While preservationists and community groups have slammed the spooky-looking structures, a survey commissioned by CityBridge found that more than three-quarters of New Yorkers support installing “smart poles” in their neighborhoods.
Gothamist visited two Link5G towers in the Morris Heights neighborhood of the Bronx on Monday. The new towers are aimed at boosting connectivity in Manhattan’s suburban neighborhoods and north of 96th Street, where internet access is limited. Residents have given the buildings mixed reviews.
Outside the five-story apartment building on Featherbed Lane, neighbours and delivery drivers chatted around a tower with a cracked tablet screen, the latter sitting on a moped and connecting to the free Wi-Fi.
But Angel Medina, a researcher at the law firm, said the original, much smaller LinkNYC kiosks offer the same service.
Medina, 52, called the towers a “waste of space.”
“Now it’s blocking some people’s views,” Medina said. “They’re already paying high rents, and now they’ve just built a tower that’s not helping them.”
Genaro Solis, 51, who lives a few blocks away, saw it differently.
Solis said he was standing next to a tower in the shade of a nearby tree to charge his phone and used the free Wi-Fi to log onto Facebook and message his daughter.
“It’s convenient because you don’t have to go home to charge your phone, you can charge it wherever you are,” Solis said.
Asked about the empty 5G cabinets on top of the building, he said he would wait patiently.
“I think it’s going to take a little bit of time. [carriers] “You can actually put devices out there,” Solis said. “It takes patience. It costs money to manage these things. And my opinion is, I love these things. I love them.”
The failure to reach an agreement is the latest setback for CityBridge, a multimillion-dollar group of companies that includes Bouldin Networks and Intersection.
The consortium’s 5G infrastructure work will not require the city to pay any costs, but instead, under a franchise agreement, the company will pay the city a percentage of advertising revenue each year.
CityBridge was on the brink of bankruptcy in 2019 after falling far short of annual revenue growth obligations spelled out in its original contract with LinkNYC in 2014. The company and the city revised the contract in 2021, leaving CityBridge with a much smaller annual debt of $3 million.
Ni said the company would be able to pay its annual dues to the city even without the additional rental income from the telecommunications company.
Councilwoman Jennifer Gutierrez, who chairs the City Council’s Technology Committee, called the revelation that 5G towers still don’t provide 5G coverage “disappointing.”
“Every day that passes is another day that New Yorkers do not have equitable access,” Gutierrez said in a statement. “I hope that all of City Bridge’s promises will be fulfilled.”
The city’s Department of Technology and Innovation, meanwhile, is backing the company, and agency spokesman Ray Legendre said the hope is that the Link5G tower will attract telecommunications carriers that want to lease space for 5G equipment.
“New York City’s deployment of a diverse broadband infrastructure is essential to ensure our ability to meet the needs of New Yorkers and close the digital divide in historically underconnected communities,” Legendre said.
The Link5G business model has its defenders among industry experts.
Theodore Rapaport, a professor at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering and a pioneer in 5G expansion, said carriers want to see the infrastructure actually built out before leasing space inside.
“If you build it, they will come,” he said.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated CityBridge’s financial obligations to the city.
