20 NYC Parks Receive Free WiFi Through AT&T

For the next five years, free WiFi will be provided in twenty NYC parks. These parks are Brooklyn Bridge Park, Fort Greene Park, Herbert Von King Park, McCarren Park and Prospect Park in Brooklyn, Bronx River Park and Devoe Park in the Bronx, Astoria Park, Flushing Meadows Corona Park and MacDonald Park in Queens, High Line, Marcus Garvey Park, Holcombe Rucker Park, Tompkins Sq and sections of Central Park in Manhattan and Clove Lake Park and South Beach in Staten Island.

The initiative was announced via Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s twitter account in parternship with Randall Stephenson, chairman and CEO of AT&T and has already been set up in Battery Park, Joyce Kilmer Park, and at Thomas Jefferson Park.

In an interview with NBC, State Sen. Jose Serrano said that he believes that “the program will provide Internet access to people who might not otherwise have it,” and that it will also make the job search easier for those who previously did not have internet access and that it’s an incentive to spend more times outdoors.

This is actually not the first time that NYC parks have provided free Wi-Fi service. Between 2005-2008, free Wi-Fi service was available in some NYC parks from Nokia, although not to the extent that it is with this new initiative. Warner and Cablevision tested a service plan last year in NYC parks that offered three free 10 minutes sessions per month for Wi-Fi access, and then charged use beyond those 10 minutes at $.99 a day. Needless to say, it didn’t exactly work out.

Overall, a pretty solid public relations building move by AT&T and may alleviate some of the negative backlash from their time as the iPhone’s sole provider and the most recent announcement as the exclusive carrier of the 3G network for Sony’s Playstation Vita.

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