![]() So, although this technology is not new, in a major metropolitan city like New York, nearly one-third of homes do not have a broadband internet connection. It would take a decade to get anywhere near a return on investment. The cost of fiber optic cable itself is just a few dollars per foot, but when you consider the upfront costs of right-of-way fees, permits, and the nearly impossible labor of digging up enough residential street to extend fiber to unconnected homes, even large ISPs aren’t willing to do it. Even if you sorted all of that with relative ease, you would then be faced with the immense task of having to clear an entire city block of cars out of the way (this doesn’t even work with street cleaning tickets), and don’t get me started on historic cobblestone roads. You can’t simply tear up a city street without first dealing with permits and existing infrastructure (beyond the Subway, there is a labyrinth of infrastructure under our feet). There are, of course, more obstacles to digging holes than just capital. This is because it’s simply too costly to dig the hole required to extend that fiber optic cable. ![]() Across the 5 boroughs there are endless examples of residential buildings that do not have fiber internet connections, despite the fact that their neighbor across the street does. It sounds absurd to the uninitiated, but it’s true. Unfortunately, so many of our modern day problems remain unsolved because of the cost of digging holes. Step one: to dig or not to dig, that is the multi-million dollar question The good news is, through creative problem solving, strategic partnerships, and diverse funding options, an open access playbook is both achievable and replicable. They say if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere, and it certainly holds true for closing the digital divide. They may not be evenly distributed throughout the boroughs, however, there is a larger diversity of available ISPs than in most places.Ībove all, New York is frankly a complicated case. New York also has a larger number of local ISPs. As mentioned before, a lot of the groundwork has already been laid through the former Internet Master Plan (in fact, it continues to inspire other cities like Los Angeles and Cleveland that have put out copycat future RFP notices). New York is uniquely positioned to serve as the exemplar for several reasons. In doing so, New York could serve as an example to the rest of the nation on how to best (and more efficiently) close the digital divide. ![]() Instead, local startups in the form of ISPs and proptech companies should band together with real estate developers to create an open access playbook. This program is a step in the wrong direction, but so is waiting for any government entity - city, state, federal or otherwise - to solve the problem. ![]() ![]() That plan, however, was scrapped under Mayor Eric Adams, whose Big Apple Connect program directs residents to ISP incumbents Optimum and Spectrum for connection. While imperfect, it was admirably ambitious and highlighted the need to bring smaller, locally-owned ISPs into the ring,allowing for more competition and fairer prices. Well before FCC broadband maps were updated and BEAD planning funding was deployed, even before the pandemic sent us all online, New York City had its own plan for closing the digital divide in the Big Apple. ![]()
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