New York City has finally begun replacing old phone booths with public WiFi hotspots

With only a few days left in 2015, New York city is finally making good on their promise to replace old telephone booths with public WiFi hotspots. The first installations — provided by LinkNYC — went up today and feature upgraded infrastructure to provide super fast gigabit data speeds to users.

Each “booth” also comes equipped with interactive tablets for free voice calling with headphone jacks for added privacy, although the calling feature is still “coming soon.” (this is beta, after all). Those who already have smart devices can connect via WiFi and do the usual, like check emails, browse social networks, video chat, or whatever else you normally do on your phone, tablet, or laptop.

It’s been almost a full year since Mayor Bloomberg first announced the project, with plans to replace more than 7,500 payphones with the shiny new gigabit WiFi hotspots. But what good is WiFi when your phone is at 3% battery? Another bonus is each kiosk has USB ports to charge your devices in a pinch.

[via The Verge]