Without announcement (public, at least) CityBridge last month commenced publishing a Link Kiosk Status dataset that looked a little more promising than its predecessor. Despite my questions about the data’s accuracy and relevance I used it to map locations and functional status of LinkNYC kiosks. This new dataset replaces the previous, and at least appears to make good on CityBridge’s pledge that they would publish more-or-less “real time” information on the functional status of LinkNYC’s WiFi, tablet, and phone call features.
When I saw the new dataset I set up some scripts and added them to my hourly crontab, downloading the dataset, stuffing it into MySQL, then using it to populate the same map as before with kiosk locations and status reports. This time I added an extra flourish by generating individual HTML pages for each Link.
There are many and considerably better ways to present this information, and I’ll be working on it if anyone seems interested. But LinkNYC is a very niche interest in the real world, and I have trouble imagining scenarios where this type of data, however current, is going to be a critical part of anyone’s decision-making process.
GO TO THE LINK
There is no way to know if this data is accurate without physically testing every kiosk as its features are reported as “down”. That is not always convenient. When the phone calling feature is reported as being down on a kiosk in Riverdale it makes no sense for me to hire an Uber and race to the scene to verify.
For now I keep an eye out for reported outages near wherever I happen to be standing when the report reaches me. That was what I did this weekend, as best I could.
Before heading out on Saturday I checked the most recent status of machines in my area. Latest data said two phones on Broadway in Astoria were down. I was able to get to those machines within 10 or 15 minutes, at which time I found that both phones said to be dead were actually working. Next day the dataset reported that a kiosk phone near where I was standing was down. When I got to it (within about 10 minutes) the phone worked fine. I was able to make a call. To no one, of course, because I would never insult my friends’ dignity with a phone call when both sides of the conversation could be heard everywhere.
About an hour later, when the dataset was updated, CityBridge reported the phone still being down. It was not.
I should add that in each case I made sure both the physical number keypad and tablet dialer screen were working. It is not clear to me which dialer the dataset is reporting on.
It might be too early to jump to this conclusion but it’s already enough to make me think the data is some kind of randomly generated thing produced to make it look like problems arise but that someone or some force of automation is quick on the draw to remedy things.
Or maybe I’ve become too cynical about how much content and activity on the internet is automated fakery.
Unless DoITT has watchdogs driving around town monitoring this data as it changes and racing to kiosk locations to test its accuracy I don’t know how this stuff can be verified without genuinely up-to-the-second real time monitoring of each kiosk. The data is said to be updated hourly but if kiosks can self-correct then that span of time might be too long to be relevant.
Whatever the case I should iterate a point I made in an earlier story: I simply cannot believe this kind of monitoring functionality was not built in to the product from the first days of planning. Even the old payphones have automated mechanisms to poll phones every night.
PHONE CALL POST-SOFTEE
The phone call feature of the kiosks is my most-used feature. On that I will not go into detail, since no one except Intersection reads this stuff. All I will say about the company’s post-Softee retaliations is that they crippled the phone calling feature worse than they realize. These folks almost certainly makes no real-world use of these kiosk tablets. The Smart City wouldn’t get what I am talking about even if I had the opportunity to tell them.
The reliability of the phone call feature was always dodgy, long before the switch from Vonage to RingCentral. I posted on this site in 2017 that the so-called “ability” the make phone calls from LinkNYC kiosks could be better described as a “possibility” since so many calls simply never connected or else calls looked like they connected but never did.
Those vagaries remain today, but a host of new ones have come up since the Vonage/RingCentral switch. Attempts to call my own cell phone have never gone through since the change to RingCentral. I’ve tried at least a few dozen times.
But that is all I am going to say about WhatHell is wrong with these machines. It is not my problem to fix.
FORGET 611. HOW ABOUT 511?
A weirdly overlooked security hole I pointed out in an earlier posting was quickly fixed. Until after I mentioned it in this story that it was possible to dial 611 and connect to RingCentral’s customer service, an automated interface from which it appeared that anyone with the account’s PIN could make changes to the account, and possibly even cancel it altogether. My access_log showed that someone at Intersection read that, and access to 611 from the kiosks was blocked within 24 hours. I could pat myself on the back, or express some small amount of camaraderie with Intersection for letting me make yet another difference in helping the company harden its kiosks against low-level vandalism.
But we don’t talk. It is a kind of digital divide, different from that which is said to limit opportunity to those without broadband.
This digital divide is more like a caste system. I see you, you see me. I remember waving and smiling at your cameras when you blocked my numbers. Maybe you do, too?
A mutually insidious side-effect of this is how bad information is allowed to spread because corporate protocol forbids directly addressing riffraff like me, or any of the activists and such who knowingly spread patently bogus misinformation and lies about LinkNYC.
I’ve been ghosted at least three times by Intersection. My job application in 2016 was completely ignored. Months later I added something to a conversation on Facebook. The conversation contained less than preening comments about the kiosks, specifically with regard to the awful sound quality of the phone calls. No one was being rude. It was legitimate feedback.
The conversation was deleted by LinkNYC.
More recently I sent an inquiry to someone connected with the company. It might be too early to say if I’ve been ignored again. Evidence suggests I have been selectively ignored and that I will be as long as I am not a preener or social media influencer.
OPERATOR: 511, PLEASE.
So forget about 611. You know what else you can’t get from LinkNYC, and never could? Something far more useful: 511. That was, and in some instances still is one of the best free calls you could make from a payphone. It connects to 511NY, the New York Traffic, Travel and Transit Information service, a useful if byzantine maze of automated prompts that sometimes leads to a human who will give you specific types of travel information. You can still call 511NY from a LinkNYC machine if you know the toll-free number (888-465-1169).
NEW KIOSKS BEING INSTALLED
I can only report from personal observation that new kiosks are being installed again, after installs apparently came to a halt near the end of August. Observation is all I have to go on because the official resources for this information are not being uniformly updated. The “Find a Link” map at Link.NYC reports 1726 active installations, a number which has basically stagnated for months. But it also reports only 2 kiosks that are installed but not yet activated. That number is unquestionably wrong and makes me question the accuracy of other stats. Depending on which dataset you consult the real number of kiosks installed but not yet activated should be something like 100 or 150, if not more.
The new kiosk dataset includes an intriguing datapoint I don’t remember seeing before. A small number of kiosks are flagged as “Removal Pending”, including one of the kiosks I pass often at 909 Third Avenue outside the FDR Post Office. That particular machine used to be a magnet for encampments, but why certain kiosks are targeted for removal is a matter worth exploring in the bowels of community board minutes and other legitimate content with poor link rank (like mine).
NOTICE OF REMOVAL?
When one of my go-to payphones was routed a few weeks ago I remembered something I thought of two years ago but never wrote down. Why can’t CityBridge at least post a notice on the payphones informing its users that their payphone will be taken away on or near a given date? Given that no public input is actively solicited as to whether New York’s remaining payphones can live or die it seems like some kind of advance notice would not be too measly a gesture to offer what’s left of the city’s payphone users. This is especially true considering it can take months or over a year for the device that replaces a working payphone to actually be activated.