Your Next Internet Service Option Could Be One of These Companies

After receiving more than 50 respondents to our Request for Information on Citywide Broadband, the City of New York is looking to partner with the private sector to connect underserved residents and small businesses with broadband.

Photo by Thomas Kvistholt on Unsplash

Last November, our office released the NYC Connected Request for Information on Citywide Broadband (RFI) as part of our office’s implementation of the City’s commitment to bring affordable, high-speed internet options to all New Yorkers by 2025. The purpose of the RFI was to gather insights from industry experts and stakeholders on how to approach this commitment. We presented five core principles — equity, performance, affordability, choice, and privacy — and challenged the private sector to explain how they could deliver on those principles in partnership with the City.

We received more than 50 responses, representing a wide range of industry- including companies that build the infrastructure and equipment for broadband service; advocates for worker rights, consumer rights and digital inclusion; and a wide array of other subject matter experts. Among other information, the responses provided information on potential network architecture and emerging technologies, use of city assets, approaches to network construction, business parameters and collaboration opportunities.

Included in the responses were more than a dozen internet service providers (ISPs) operating in the city — big household names and startup providers alike. These ISPs consistently said that they see good times ahead, with plans to invest in new technologies to meet growing demand for data.

Surprised to hear that there are that many ISPs in New York City? You’re not alone. As we reported in our April report, Truth in Broadband: Access and Connectivity in New York City, more than two-thirds of New York City households have only one or two available options for broadband service and nearly three quarters of small businesses have similarly limited options for commercial fiber service. This lack of strong competition keeps prices high.

Although all of the ISPs are reporting improvements with plans to invest in new technologies, they are focused on where they already have customers in place, deepening the imprints of past investment decisions. The neighborhoods with fewer people and businesses using broadband are less likely to see improvements in the quality or choice of services, reinforcing current disparities. That’s how we end up with a dozen or so ISPs in the city, but most people with just two or one that are available at FCC-defined speeds to connect their home to broadband.

New York City is not alone in this broadband gap. This is a problem that other cities are also grappling with. The good news for New York City is how many of the respondents to our RFI are open to partnering with the City on reaching under-served residents and small businesses, and how many embraced the City’s five core principles. We are working now to develop these partnership opportunities and to identify the areas of the city that are the highest priority.

RFI respondent organizations:

· Altice

· American Tower

· AT&T

· Better-B/Silicon Harlem/ Sky Packets

· Bigbelly

· Bridges Inc.

· Charter

· Ciena

· CommHub Mobility

· Conduit Space Recovery Systems

· Consumers Union

· Crown Castle

· CWA-Union

· DEAL Coalition

· E-Band Communications

· Foresite Group

· FSA Networks

· GigXero

· Greywale Advisors

· Honest Networks

· JCDecaux

· Mobilitie

· modeXnet

· Neighborly

· Nest Wireless

· Neture

· NYC Mesh

· NYSERNet

· OATS

· Open Access.net Inc

· Pilot

· Resilient Communities, New America

· Ruckus Networks (Arris)

· Shale Team

· Siklu Communication

· Sky Packets

· Spot On Networks

· Stealth Communications

· SYNDEO

· Telcom Networks

· Ting Fiber

· T-Mobile

· Transit Wireless

· Verizon

· Wi-Fi Alliance

· WiredScore

· Wireless 20/20

· Xchange Telecom/ Skywire Networks

· Yomura Fiber

· ZenFi Networks

Joshua Breitbart — Deputy Chief Technology Officer, Broadband, in the Mayor’s Office of the CTO for the City of New York