Almost all of the towers stand empty, CityBridge officials say, leaving residents without the promised high-speed 5G internet access.

The vast majority of the massive, metallic towers the city commissioned to help low-income neighborhoods access high-speed 5G internet still lack cell signal equipment – more than two years after hundreds of the structures began sprouting across the five boroughs. Just two of the nearly 200 Link5G towers installed by tech firm CityBridge since 2022 have been fitted with 5G equipment, company officials said. Delayed installations and cooling enthusiasm around 5G technology have discouraged carriers like Verizon from using the towers to build out their networks, experts say. The firm only has an agreement with a single telecommunications carrier to deliver high-speed internet, stymieing its efforts to boost mobile connectivity citywide.

The 32-foot-tall structures, which resemble giant tampon applicators emerging from the sidewalk, offer the same services as the LinkNYC electronic billboards that popped up around the city in 2016. Those were also installed by CityBridge. Both the original Link kiosks and the 5G towers provide free limited-range Wi-Fi, charging outlets and a tablet to connect users to city services. Data shared by the company shows that 16 million people have used the internet at kiosks since 2016, and the attached tablets are used to call for city services thousands of times each month. But unlike the LinkNYC kiosks, each new tower is topped with a 12-foot-tall cylindrical mesh chamber containing five empty shelves reserved for companies like Verizon and T-Mobile to store the equipment they use to transmit high-speed 5G internet service to paying customers.

Emphases mine because of that hilarious but completely spot-on description…

  • @cm0002English
    5•5 months ago

    Ah, I see the confusion. Those small site towers are great for dense urban areas like the cities you guys have in the EU and major major (like NYC) cities here in the US

    Anywhere else in the US though, they suck because they just don’t have the range and power and our cities tend to sprawl. Even in our biggest cities, once you get out of the core, the sprawl gets ridiculous really really fast. These are what you’ll typically find around here:

    Oh and believe me, those NIMBYs will start complaining about multifamily housing followed by the homeless in the second breath after their rant on cell towers