Archinect - News

Is the sight and scale of New York’s new 5G towers appropriate for the city?

2024-06-11T14:41:00-04:00

“There is a harm to having these 32-foot- tall futuristic towers, often with large video display terminals on them, in residential neighborhoods in historic districts”

The New York Times picks up on the growing “visual distraction” that the appearance of 5G towers has created, along with a debate about their existence vis-à-vis the historic street-level visual character of neighborhoods such as Greenwich Village. LinkNYC is planning to add up to 2,000 more to its already 150-strong inventory. Alternative designs to the “shroud”-covered 32-foot poles were apparently too “ugly” by New York standards.

Still, an expanding chorus of detractors has led to FCC reviews and complaints from at least 16 community boards. Crain's also reported last week the city's Chief Technology Officer, Matthew Fraser, is considering a massive redesign campaign in deference to them and the torrent of tech companies' proposals that have followed since their roll out in 2022.

Internet providers can now profit from your privacy, thanks to the House Republicans

2017-03-28T18:57:00-04:00

Not content to creepily stalk you with tailored ads on Facebook and Google, ISPs can now sell your internet browsing history to third-parties for cash, thanks to the corporately-backed husks that voted for the move in the U.S. House of Representatives. According to The Washington Post:

Congress's joint resolution empowers Internet providers to enter the $83 billion market for online advertising now dominated by Google and Facebook. It is likely to lend momentum to a broader GOP rollback of Obama-era technology policies, and calls into question the fate of other tech regulations such as net neutrality, which was approved in 2015 over strident Republican objections and bans Internet providers from discriminating against websites. And it is a sign that companies such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon will be treated more permissively at a time when conservatives control all three branches of government.

Net Neutrality lives on in Santa Monica, California

2014-04-30T18:40:00-04:00

[Santa Monica will] be able to offer its residents real net neutrality, which the [FCC] is working on rolling back for just about everyone else in the US. [...] Santa Monica has cleverly and quietly been installing its own network of city-owned fiber-optic cables for years, and they intend to keep the net neutral. [...] Santa Monica has also made about $5 million providing internet service and leasing out the cables to other providers, and their competition has driven down rates.

The Federal Communications Commission recently proposed that internet service providers (like Verizon, AT&T, and Time Warner Cable) should be able to charge companies extra for faster service -- so for example, Netflix could pay AT&T more to ensure faster download speeds for its viewers. This would violate net neutrality, the concept that aims to ensure that every companies' data on the internet is treated (and delivered) equally. Under the FCC's proposal, larger companies would be able to make their content more accessible to users, handicapping smaller companies from the get-go.

But what if your internet service provider wasn't AT&T or Verizon, but your own city? Should city governments hold the reins of internet service, and ultimately net neutrality? It's not only a question of download speeds for the user, but of how local governments could use internet traffic data to change their city. If the internet were treated like a local utility, then perhaps city governments could more ...