Calling 2021, “the Year of 5G,” Mayor de Blasio Wants to Bring Broadband Internet to All New Yorkers

By Yehudit Garmaise

    As part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s efforts to bring back New York City, he wants to “make 2021 the year of 5G,” and bring high-speed broadband access to the many New Yorkers who do not yet have it, he said this morning at his press conference.

   “5G is the future,” said the mayor, who explained that as the pandemic created an intensified need for people to have the Internet to learn, work, and make COVID and vaccination appointments, the inequalities in the city as to who had Internet access stood out more sharply than ever. 

   “We must make sure that all New Yorkers can get affordable and quality broadband,” the mayor said. 

   As part of his efforts to close the digital divide, the mayor explained that he is investing $157 million to provide affordable Internet access to reach 600,000 more New Yorkers, “including 200,000 more public housing residents will now have access to affordable Internet because of this initiative.” 

   “We are going to make sure that 5G is focused, everywhere of course, but, [especially] on the neighborhoods that were hardest hit [by COVID] and need equity first,” said the mayor, who is once again focusing on the 33 neighborhoods that he prioritized for the COVID vaccine.

   The mayor explained that he will be focusing his “expansion of 5G into so many of the neighborhoods that were hardest hit by COVID: that our Task Force of Racial Inclusion and Equity has identified as the areas that have experienced historic disparities.”

Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office