T-Mobile and Verizon eschew New York-commissioned 5G towers in poor neighborhoods

In the aftermath of the pandemic, the City of New York commissioned hundreds of literally towering poles on which carriers like T-Mobile and Verizon were supposed to place their 5G equipment to give poorer neighborhoods access to the bright, shiny new 5G technology.

The move came after it became clear that 40% of households in disadvantaged communities don’t have reliable access to fast internet, so at least a million students were disadvantaged when New York City’s schools switched everyone to remote learning.

At present, just 1% of the 200 5G towers in low-income New York neighborhoods actually spread 5G to the masses. The contraptions are 32 feet tall and also house chargers, Wi-fi hotspots, and a tablet from which residents can access the city’s services.

As a result, the city’s Internet Master Plan couldn’t really become reality and on top of that, about a million households lost their federal broadband Internet subsidies as the program ran out.

Verizon and T-Mobile didn’t comment on why haven’t they installed 5G equipment in the Link5G towers, but the overall trend is for putting the brakes on the those wideband 5G points as the return on the investment is simply not there.

People consider 5G and even 4G LTE fast enough already, while the wideband mmWave equipment has much shorter coverage area and rooftops or billboards are cheaper to rent for carriers than said Link5G poles. People still use them to charge their phones, or get a quick Wi-fi fix around them, but their main reason for existence is still in flux.

“While the cellular service is built out – which is taking longer than we wanted, but it is happening – all the other services are still existing as well,” opined one CityBridge official.