Free WiFi Comes to Times Square

It's about time

Updated 9:15 AM EST, Wed, Nov 11, 2009

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Welcome to the wireless age, Times Square.

The city's "crossroads of the world" has become a new hotspot for free WiFi access. And it's about time.

Times Square, a mecca of glitz and glam that captures the heart of the city in a few square blocks, has offered streaming television, news events and promotional activities on massive screens for years. The only thing that hasn't been available has been the ability to check one's e-mail from a laptop – until now.

What could be more complimentary to those cool relaxing lounge chairs in the pedestrian mall than free WiFi?

The Times Square Alliance hopes the free wireless Internet access will give the thousands of visitors and workers who pass through the area each day a new reason to dawdle or recline. The local business group and Yahoo unveiled the service on Tuesday.

Yahoo has donated one year of WiFi service and designed a home page where users are directed to a listing of Times Square events and businesses. Users can then access other Internet sites.

Times Square is a late comer to the WiFi revolution, considering its location and reputation as a tourist hot spot. A wireless network has been in place in Bryant Park for years, as well as in a variety of other public locations. There's been discussion about creating a citywide public network, according to The New York Times, but questions of how to raise profit have left establishing WiFi networks primarily to private groups.

In some cases, the city has even had to pull the plug on free wireless internet. Everyone was thrilled, for example, when free WiFi came to Central Park. But it disappeared nearly as soon as it arrived because of "current economic conditions," as the contractor said at the time. Networks in Battery Park and Prospect Park suffered similar fates.

Still, it's better late than never for Times Square. Joe Plotkin, a member of the board of NYCwireless, a nonprofit group that promotes WiFi, told the Times that he was excited Times Square was getting on board.

"We're just happy to see that it happened at all," he said. "The more the merrier."