{"id":158,"date":"2006-10-23T13:14:34","date_gmt":"2006-10-23T13:14:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tompayne.wordpress.com\/2006\/10\/23\/tom-gets-quoted-in-the-ny-post\/"},"modified":"2006-10-23T13:14:34","modified_gmt":"2006-10-23T13:14:34","slug":"tom-gets-quoted-in-the-ny-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paynecentral.com\/tompayne\/2006\/10\/23\/tom-gets-quoted-in-the-ny-post\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom gets quoted in the NY Post"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘NET LOSS IN PARKS<\/a>
\nCITY IS BUNGLING WI-FI PLAN: CRITICS
\nBy SAM GUSTIN
\nOctober 23, 2006 — Bureaucratic bungling, incompetence and old-fashioned greed have short-circuited a plan to install free wi-fi in city parks, critics charge.
\nTwo years ago, the city Department of Parks and Recreation awarded a contract to set up wireless Internet access in 10 city parks, but to date, only two of those parks are up and running.
\nParks spokesman Ashe Reardon conceded that only a handful of “hot spots” in Central Park currently work. Wi-Fi Salon, the company awarded the contract two years ago to take the parks wireless, claims Battery Park also is online.
\n“It’s been a long process,” said Reardon. “But we’re working on it.”
\nCity Councilwoman Gale Brewer told The Post she’s “frustrated” by the situation and blasted the Parks Department as “technologically challenged.”
\nWi-fi activists also are fed up.
\n“No one at the top of the Parks Department food chain knows anything about wi-fi or the Internet,” said Dana Spiegel, the executive director of NYC Wireless, a volunteer group.
\nIn one case, she said, the department demanded a $1.5 million insurance policy from the community group Friends of Dag Hammarskjold Plaza after it said it wanted to install a free hot spot there.
\n
\n“I don’t know what liability the city was worried about,” said Friends director Tom Payne. “That the antenna would fall on somebody’s head?” <\/b>
\nIn another example of bureaucratic bungling, a firm building Philadelphia’s free, citywide wireless network offered to construct a hot spot in Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn at no cost to the city – but the department held it up, critics said.
\nSources inside and outside city government charge that the department is dragging its feet in order to sign up corporate sponsors – and pump revenue out of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘NET LOSS IN PARKS CITY IS BUNGLING WI-FI PLAN: CRITICS By SAM GUSTIN October 23, 2006 — Bureaucratic bungling, incompetence and old-fashioned greed have short-circuited a plan to install free wi-fi in city parks, critics charge. Two years ago, the city Department of Parks and Recreation awarded a contract to set up wireless Internet access […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-archive"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paynecentral.com\/tompayne\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paynecentral.com\/tompayne\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paynecentral.com\/tompayne\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paynecentral.com\/tompayne\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paynecentral.com\/tompayne\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/paynecentral.com\/tompayne\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paynecentral.com\/tompayne\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paynecentral.com\/tompayne\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paynecentral.com\/tompayne\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}