Google To Transform Phone Booth In New York To WiFi Stations

Google in collaboration with Sidewalk Labs will transform the payphones into Wi-Fi hotspots

The previous month, Google Inc. the search engine giant has recently revealed that Sidewalk Labs, a startup that is working to instill technology within cities. So, now this startup is all set to enforce its first initiative for the urban community. As reported by Bloomberg, the startup owned by Google is all set to offer Wi-Fi hotspots free of cost to several cities across the globe where it has targeted New York City as the first destination.

In order to bolster this humble initiative by Google, Sidewalk Labs is also likely to acquire to other firms that are functioning the popular LinkNYC project in New York City. The aim behind this venture is to transform almost 10,000 payphones that are ad0supported across the city into Wi-Fi hotspots free of cost. Titan and Control Group are said to be the latests acquisitions by Sidewalk Labs. The job of Control Group is to come up with software for the Wi-Fi hotspots and Titan is responsible to manage the advertisements that generate finances for these projects.

According to Google news, the company is all set to merge both the firms and the name this collaborative venture as Intersection. The reason is that it uses various forms of infrastructure techniques that are used by public Wi-Fi that encompass bus stops to payphones. The payphones that are relatively old will simply not be a hotspot that will offer broadband with high speed but they will also act as charging stations that will offer domestic calls free of cost along with touchscreens that cam assist in navigation.

 “The vision really is to make cities connected places where you can walk down any street and have access to free ultra-high speed Wi-Fi,” reported Don Doctoroff who is the former chief executive officer of Bloomberg. He further added, “The possibilities from there are just endless.”

Another advantage of having Google as part of the venture for such a massive project is that the LinkNYC interface is currently equipped with Google Android OS. Mr. Colin O’ Dennell who is the founder of Control Group believes that “Having an investor who’s responsible for that OS is a great asset.” Moreover; he also stated that the future ventures on Intersection will be different in nature, as reproted by latest Google updates.

However at this point we do not really know when we will be able to see this venture roll put for the masses or which city will be the next destination for the company. But one things that will govern future projects is that they should have the support of local government.