New York City will turn all of its payphones into free, high-speed wifi hotspots

New York City will turn all of its payphones into free, high-speed wifi hotspots
(Image credit: LinkNYC)

In most cities, payphones are a zombified anachronism of the urban landscape — a place where someone can duck in to get out of the sidewalk crowd, escape the weather, and...make a cellphone call. New York City, on the other hand, sees phone booths as the perfect place to start a communication revolution.

Under a new program called LinkNYC, the city has announced plans to remove 8,400 payphones and replace them with 10,000 kiosks providing free high-speed wifi, free domestic phone call service, and even charging stations:

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Mike Barry

Mike Barry is the senior editor of audience development and outreach at TheWeek.com. He was previously a contributing editor at The Huffington Post. Prior to that, he was best known for interrupting a college chemistry class.