I’ve been working the Links on Third Avenue, using them to collect streetscape sounds and city noises. I call a Skype number and let the call go for the 10 minute voicemail box limit, letting the Link device’s built in microphone inhale whatever sounds it can. I’ve done this for years using traditional payphones to capture mostly sounds of subway buskers and street musicians while also grasping for general subway and street sounds as best a low-fidelity instrument such as a payphone handset can capture them. The ever-growing playlist is hit or miss on fidelity and but can make for intriguing background noise in your workday:

For the last couple of months I have attempted to adapt this pursuit to the changing times by using Links, the new multimedia depots expected to replace thousands of NYC’s payphones in the coming years. Among other services offered by Links is free phone calls within the U.S. I’ve said before and I’ll say again, call quality on these LinkNYC devices is awful. The person you call through a Link sounds perfectly fine over the device’s loudspeaker. You, however, to the person you call, sound like something between R2D2 and a shortwave radio that cannot quite tune in to a station. With no noise cancelling mechanism on the Links your voice mixes evenly with background sounds of car horns blasting, people yelling, winds gusting, and countless other aural vagaries. On account of this it has been hard to gather audio from these devices that is worth sharing as anything more than a morbid curiosity.

The best way to be heard and to be clearly understood when placing a call through a Link is to yell. That appears to be what happened in the audio capture below, as a LinkNYC enthusiast encountered one of the devices on Third Avenue last week soon after I had dialed it in to Skype. Expecting garbled street noises and hoarse ambient sounds typical of Links sound quality I instead heard a voice that was relatively clear.

Here is what one individual is saying about the Links. I transcribed his comments below as best I could. Click to listen:

“I was saying this Linky thing, it’s a BETA. It’s a BETA thing. It’s a tower that is a… called LinkNYC. And it’s a Wi-Fi tech, sort of a phone booth. It’s a tall tower and it’s got, and you go on the Internet, it’s got a like a iPad screen on it… I wonder how long that’s gonna be before people start smashing it, heh… and an iPad screen and you can connect to the Internet, you can make free phone calls, call city services, you can get a map, Google map on it … aaaand…. Yeah, this is unbelievable! And it’s got a USB power outlet… plug stuff in… It’s amazing! Curious to see how that’s gonna work. Heh heh heh.”

His enthusiasm seems genuine, if wisely tempered. From his comments it appears he never actually used one of these devices. This puts him in the same league as virtually everyone I’ve seen expressing enthusiasm for Links: These aren’t the people using them. I don’t mean to suggest these things don’t deliver. Links deliver on free Wi-Fi, though most sessions I’ve started get interrupted or cut off altogether. They do deliver on free web browsing, with a majority of people I’ve seen surfing directly to YouTube and listening to music, sometimes quite loudly through the Links’ loudspeaker.

What I can’t get over is the dodgy call quality, and how this scritchy-scratchy sound environment could fully replace the more rugged but reliable sound of the traditional payphone’s copper landline.

I noticed the gentleman’s emphasis on the product’s BETA status. The public seems to have bottomless enthusiasms and even sympathies for anything tagged BETA. It really doesn’t matter if these things actually work as long as they look sleek and new and are uncritically described by friendly media. All the world’s a BETA, after all. After 4½ billion years we are still in BETA, and always will be.