According to Crain’s New York Business [1] it would appear that Titan have won the NYC bid to turn (old) pay phones into Wi-Fi hubs.
[2]Crain’s Matthew Flamm spotted in The City Record, an announcement of a public hearing to be held by the franchise committee on December 8, between the city of New York and CityBridge LLC, which is a Titan trademark, according to an application the outdoor-advertising company filed in July [2].
Our regular readers will know that this RFP for ‘Public Communications Structures & WiFi’ calls for 10,000 locations across all five New York boroughs and some estimates (we heard again, during New York Digital Signage Week [3]) place the 15-year contract value at USD 750 million.
Tom Touchet, City24x7 CEO will almost certainly claim credit for this idea, interviewed online in June 2014 [4] , he said “all this, because about five years ago, we walked into the city and pitched this idea, then began working incredibly hard to make that idea a reality” but we fear, has lost out should he have had any hope of winning this particular RFP.
Titan bid for this RFP with a partner (as bidders were encouraged to do in the RFP that went out from the Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications last May) but it was not City24x7, it most likely being Control Group.
Titan acquired All NY Verizon phone kiosks back in August 2010 [5] and re-imagined NYC pay phones in March 2013 [6].
Both Van Wagner Kiosk Advertising Inc. and Titan have been testing the Wi-Fi service for New York’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications since August 2012 [7].
Whilst many believe that all will be revealed on December 8. 2014 we think it much more likely that we see a press release sometime this week!