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There are no operators who might influence in a biased way the work of this broadband task force. Its mission is to
take a hard look at how the city is approaching the proliferation of broadband and get input directly in terms of
strategy, policy, and in terms of what they think might be the best fit.

Do we need more services in the subways? Do we need more services in our railways? Do we need to have more
capacity at congested transportation corridors? Do we need more services in our job centers or in our homeless
shelters? Or in other locations that are mission critical to the city? These are the kinds of questions the broadband
task force addresses.
It's motivating and incentivizing to be able to do business with the city of New York, but to the extent that it’s not, they
are putting a lot of franchise agreements on the surgery table today in order to lower the cost of doing business in
under-served areas. They are also introducing methods that can be used to support incumbents and new entrants by
allowing them to provision services from a surplus amount of fiber that they already have in the ground and extend it
beyond their existing franchise agreement, which they may not have been able to do in the past. For example, some
are restricted in providing services beyond the subway corridors. They have a surplus of fiber which New York City
can allow to take out of the subways and go above ground in order to serve the railway passages, transportation
corridors, schools, libraries, and other areas.

In New York City, local community boards are critical stakeholders in the telecommunications ecosystem. They
consistently talk with the community boards about important localized neighborhood issues that come up around
telecommunication services. NYC is installing Wi- Fi kiosks across the city, and every step of the planning is
coordinated with political leaders, the borough presidents, and the community boards where citizens come out and
talk about how they feel that their specific communities can benefit from the deployment.
At the end of the day, the proliferation of broadband exists for the public at large. New York City’s goal is to provide
equitable, universal services. The idea is to proliferate broadband to help the community, schools, libraries,
healthcare services, job searches, and even children with doing their homework.

2 Connected City Value Proposition

2.1 Importance of Connectivity to Cities

Connectivity is important to a city on many layers – for individuals, it means greater convenience and better quality of
life; for businesses, connectivity helps to create new economic opportunities for companies in all sectors such as tech,
media, healthcare, logistics and more; and finally connectivity also allows the Government to better manage and run
the city by anticipating needs and providing improved services to its people.
Cities today are facing challenges arising from increasing urban density, aging population, healthcare needs,
transport mobility, and energy sustainability. Cities around the world are experimenting with ‘smart city’ technologies
to tackle such issues, and connectivity plays a key enabler role.
For example, in Singapore, public hospitals are currently trialing a tele-health rehabilitation system. With robust
wireless connectivity, data is collected and transmitted from sensors attached to patients’ limbs as they carry out
therapy sessions within the comfort of their homes. This eliminates the need for patients to travel and wait for their
appointments in hospitals. At the same time, the approach frees up Singapore’s pool of therapists to render more
dedicated care to a larger group of patients.

Connectivity powering big data and analytics technologies, and next-generation sensor networks help country’s
leaders to develop insights and share data more effectively, to improve operations and policies and build services to
make life for residents better.

Report title: Connected City Blueprint
8 Issue Date: 15 December 2016 Wireless Broadband Alliance Confidential & Proprietary.
Copyright © 2016 Wireless Broadband Alliance
Document Version: 1.0