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The Office of the Future Today


 

Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently took on a problem that annoys a growing number of New Yorkers. Many new cell phones take photographs, offer games and play music, but do not make calls -- at least not in numerous places throughout the city. "Cell phone 'dead spots' are frustrating and too common," the mayor announced. The city's solution: When New Yorkers find these dead spot zones, they should dial 311 to report them. And then what? "This program will undoubtedly help the industry improve service and help consumers make more informed purchasing decisions," the mayor said.

 






Other articles in this series:

• Electricity
• Steam
• Natural Gas
• Sewage

• Telecommunications
• Water
• Garbage
• Keeping the City Running (Overview)


And this in a nutshell is the dilemma facing the city. If New York has its most tech-savvy mayor ever -- an entrepreneur who made billions providing technology to businesses and whose pet projects at City Hall include tech innovations such as the 311 telephone number for non-emergencies -- one public official can only do so much. The city has so far been better at identifying local tech problems than in solving them.

Will the typical New York City workplace of the 21st century be like Terry Gilliam's 1985 film "Brazil" (shown above), where a house fly can plunge the whole makeshift technology and telecommunications system into chaos?

But these problems, some say, are more than just an inconvenience; solving them is essential if New York City is to remain a capital of communications and commerce. Will the typical New York City workplace of the 21st century be like the graceful high-tech offices of Steven Spielberg's movie "Minority Report," where Tom Cruise waves his hands in the air and is instantly connected to an information superhighway? Or will it be more like Terry Gilliam's 1985 film "Brazil," where a house fly can plunge the whole makeshift technology and telecommunications system into chaos?

WHAT TODAY'S OFFICES NEED

The August 14, 2003, blackout dramatized many of the flaws in New York's communications systems. The Internet was useless. Cell phone providers could not handle the increased demand for calls and, as the blackout continued, service deteriorated further. Many office phone systems, dependent upon electricity, also failed to function.

But it does not take an extraordinary event like a blackout to point out the problems that businesses face. According to a report by the Center for an Urban Future, New York has become "one of the worst environments for entrepreneurs and growing firms," ranking at the bottom of national lists. One reason for this is its poor telecommunications technology. Meanwhile, advances in technology that enable people to "telecommute" and easily work with people hundreds of miles away make it less essential for many businesses to stay in New York. Experts agree that faced with such challenges, New York will lose businesses, jobs and money if things don't change.

Of course, the office of the future does exist right now in New York. Employees in many offices communicate almost entirely by computer, e-mailing colleagues, customers and contractors around the world, and checking stock prices, political trends and industry data on the Internet. Large businesses host their own Web sites, set up wireless networks in their offices, use voice-over-Internet technologies to cut phone costs and hold online conferences. Orders come in over the Internet, and customers track the status of shipments by computer.

An increasing number of people spend much of their business day away from a traditional office, working on portable devices such as laptops, personal digital assistants and cell phones. A salesperson may visit a client and then e-mail a report on the meeting while sitting in a nearby cafe or park. An electrician at a building site needs to check on the availability of a part; the site has no phone service yet, making him completely dependent on his cell phone. Every day, people need to connect to files, programs, databases and the Internet from their apartments, their local park or even Yankee Stadium.

Such new technologies increase efficiency and cut costs. But many businesses outside midtown and lower Manhattan cannot take advantage of them, because of aging or outmoded wires and cables, or because they simply are not available anywhere but the two major business districts.

HIGH SPEED INTERNET ACCESS

An image from Steven Spielberg's movie "Minority Report," where Tom Cruise waves his hands in the air and is instantly connected to an information superhighway.

Just about anyone with a telephone and a computer can get access to the Internet. But, as anyone who uses a dial-up system at home knows, access can be painfully slow and tie up telephone lines.

That is why many businesses are looking to "broadband," which is a high-speed connection to the Internet such as a digital subscriber line or DSL (which uses the phone lines), or cable-modem (which sometimes shares the wire used for cable television). Unlike dial-up, broadband is always on, so there is no connecting and disconnecting.

Any business that makes or takes orders for merchandise can benefit from broadband. Conducting such transactions by dial-up Internet or telephone can be slow and frustrating as screens can freeze and information can be lost.

"Broadband is critical for economic development and small business growth across the board, not just in high-tech industries," says Jonathan Bowles, research director at the Center for an Urban Future, who has been interviewing small businesses on the importance of broadband for a report to be released next month.

The problem is that broadband is not widely available in the city outside of midtown and lower Manhattan.

For example, cable DSL and cable modem are extremely difficult to get in Brooklyn, largely because providers consider it a low income area, City Councilmember Gale Brewer, chair of the council's technology committee, told Wireless Review this summer. "A year ago, a senior citizen center with a multimillion-dollar budget wanted to put in broadband, but no one wanted to go there," Brewer said. "I've worked in a lot of low-income areas in New York City, and private companies always think there's no marketplace there. We have to get this to go beyond the central business district."

Experts claim that if broadband were made available in just 50 percent of the city, it could bring in an extra $15 billion to the New York economy over the next 25 years. Providing service to 94 percent of New Yorkers could bring in $80 billion.

The lack of broadband places a heavy burden on many nonprofit groups, says Kayza Kleinman, director of the Nonprofit Helpdesk at the Jewish Community Council of Greater Coney Island. Government regulations require that many social service agencies provide services and information online, something difficult to do without high speed Internet access. As a result, many struggling organizations have felt forced to wire their buildings themselves, at a cost they cannot afford. And those are the ones lucky enough to be in an area where such wiring is possible.

Simply providing high speed Internet access is only the beginning. Even when service is available, some small businesses and nonprofits cannot afford it. While prices for most telecommunication services have been falling, broadband prices have gone up. Many organizations pay at least $400 per month so that a number of computers can be online at the same time.

The relatively high price is due largely to a lack of competition. While there are 18 broadband providers other than Verizon, most of them must lease the wires from Verizon and thus have to pay Verizon for access.

And there are different types of broadband. While all may be high speed, exactly how fast one can send and receive information may vary. Such differences present particular problems for companies that want to host Web sites and e-commerce platforms. "All broadband is not equal," says Joe Plotkin of Bway, a New York-based Internet-service provider that provides symmetrical broadband.

FIBER OPTICS

There are two ways for telephone companies, such as Verizon, to make high-speed Internet more readily available. They can replace the copper wires that currently run under much of New York City, with newer ones that are better able to handle massive amounts of information. Or they can upgrade to fiber optics. These cables -- strands of glass about the size of a human hair that transmit light signals -- allow Internet connections that are four times faster than broadband and could be ten times faster in the future.

But 87 percent of the city's fiber optic cables are in Manhattan business districts below 59th Street. One obstacle to expanding their reach is money. Fiber optics cost as much as $40,000 per mile to install, while wireless costs a tenth as much, according to one study.

HOTSPOTS

It is a truism of work in the 21st century that many people must be accessible around the clock -- in the office or away -- and so rely on being able to use cell phones and laptop computers wherever they might be.

Key to this are "hotspots" that provide a wireless Internet connection people can use with their laptops, personal digital assistants and other devices over the airwaves. Wireless, which is comparatively cheap to set up, can bridge gaps between other services. Currently, there are hundreds of free hot spots in business and residential areas of Manhattan as well as in the outer boroughs. (See map.)

The non-profit group NYCwireless has joined with economic development groups and parks organizations to provide free Internet access in places such as Bryant Park and lower Manhattan. Verizon offers wireless to their paid broadband customers at telephone booths, and T-mobile connects Starbucks customers for a monthly fee.

The city hopes to create schools, libraries and other government buildings as wireless hotspots. But wireless is still on the cutting edge. Many people do not know that wireless sites are available, and most small businesses have not yet begun to explore how wireless can help them. And even though wireless is spreading here, it is still not as popular in New York as it is in places such as Portland, Oregon, and Orange County, California.

PLANNING FOR THE HIGH-TECH FUTURE

While there is widespread agreement on at least some of the technology the city will need for its economy to thrive in the coming decades, less agreement exists on how to achieve it. Much of the controversy involves who should pay for the improvements.

Many believe that upgrading the city's wires and cables is the job of private companies such as Verizon, Con Edison, Time Warner Cable and Cablevision that profit from providing such services. As it stands now, the companies do shoulder most of the cost and make only those improvements they feel are worthwhile for them. For example, to justify the cost of installing new cable, Verizon must believe that it will gain a significant increase in business once the cables are installed.

Others say the need for fiber optics and other improvements is so crucial to the general well being of the city that it cannot be left to the private sector alone.

In May 2003, the City Council published a report, "Network NYC" (in pdf format) which laid out a proposed long-range telecom strategy. Many of the report's recommendations involve increased planning and analysis of the city's telecommunications needs by the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications.

But the report also called on the city to use its economic clout as a major purchaser of telecommunications services to get improvements in service. New York City spends over $130 million annually on telecommunications, primarily telephone and Internet, more than any other city in the country. At least 75 percent of that goes to Verizon - with no competitive bidding. The report and the city comptroller have questioned whether the city should solicit competing bids to cut costs and perhaps exert influence on Verizon. (The company could not be reached for comment.)

The report also urges the city to make better use of existing technology. For example, it notes, the city manages franchises with a number of fiber optics companies and controls rooftops through New York that could be used for wireless. Yet, despite this, it says, "there has been little public discussion or long term strategic thinking about how the city could better organize this public and private infrastructure to encourage a truly citywide deployment of affordable, high speed networking capacity."

Because laying new fiber optic cable is so expensive, Councilmember Brewer recommends using existing fiber optics - either lines already owned by the city or leased from other owners - and combining them with wireless to create a network linking every borough but Staten Island. Brewer sees such a network helping small companies and non profits that cannot afford $400 to $1,200 a month to get high-speed Internet access from Verizon.

Another possibility involves taking old systems and putting them to new uses. The city explored the possibility of putting telecommunications equipment, including fiber optics, in space occupied by unused water pipes.

Some fiber optic cables -- called dark fiber -- were installed in the ground during the high tech boom of the 1990s. But they were then abandoned as dot.coms went bankrupt. Providing new cable to link to this unused dark fiber could be a lower-cost way of bringing fiber optics to at least some parts of the city.

As appealing as some of these ideas are, any solution is bound to be for the short-term only. In the 21st century, technology often becomes outmoded before many of us ever get to use it. And so fiber optics, broadband and hot spots could all soon be eclipsed by better, cheaper technology that has not been developed yet.

But whatever the actual technology, New York will have to stay on top of it. And that requires a vision, a plan and a way to put it into action.

Steam


When John Velez, co-owner of Sutton Cleaners, arrives at work at 7 a.m. on Manhattan's East Side, he opens a steam valve in the back of his shop. "When I come into the shop in the morning, it's one, two, three," he says, "and you're up and running in less than a minute."

 






Other articles in this series:

• Electricity
• Steam
• Natural Gas
• Sewage

• Telecommunications
• Water
• Garbage
• Keeping the City Running (Overview)


Nearly every piece of equipment that Velez will operate for the rest of the day uses steam. The spotter shoots out steam to remove stains while a puffer sends out steam to remove wrinkles. The dry cleaning machine and the pressing machine also use steam.

So do Rockefeller Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the United Nations -- which use it for heating and cooling - along with some 2,000 other customers and 100,000 buildings, from residential low-rises to commercial skyscrapers. All are in Manhattan, primarily because steam is most efficient and cost effective for high-rise buildings.

The City of New York is one of the largest consumers of steam. The Roman Catholic Church of St. Peter in lower Manhattan began using steam to warm its sanctuary in 1882, the year the first steam generation plant went into operation in New York. The church has used steam ever since.

NOT JUST A GIANT STEAM KETTLE

Some 30 billion pounds of steam every year flow beneath the streets of Manhattan from the Battery to 96th Street. While it is unknown to most New Yorkers, Con Edison's subterranean steam system is the biggest steam district in the world, larger than the next four largest U.S. steam systems combined and boasting an annual steam production more than double that of Paris, Europe's largest system.

If steam is an easier concept to grasp than, say, fiber optics, producing it on this scale is nowhere as simple as turning on a giant teakettle. Some of the steam comes from the Con Edison steam generating plant on 14th Street and the East River. Inside, two massive boilers -- one 95 feet high -- burn natural gas or fuel oil and air. The resulting heat sends the temperature of water inside the boiler's pipes to a blistering 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, converting it to steam. Workers wear ear protectors to keep out some of the roar of millions of gallons of flowing water and the sound of spinning turbine blades. Little, though, can shield them from the warmth radiating from pipes filled with superheated vapor.

"When we used to bring people into the plant for tours, their first impression, when we have them look inside of the furnace, is that it's huge. People are taken back by the sheer size of it - eight stories high," says Wilton Cedeno, former manager of Con Edison's Hudson Avenue steam plant. "There are intricate control systems -- systems for treating the water, electrical systems, pressure systems. It's all very complex."

On average, the plant converts a gallon of water into eight pounds of steam -- every hour, approximately 125,000 gallons of water are turned into more than one million pounds of steam. "We use city water, but the water has to be processed and cleaned," says Cedeno. "If it's not pure, you get build up on pipes and can damage the turbine blades."

The East River plant is one of seven Con Edison plants -- five in Manhattan and one each in Queens and Brooklyn. Three of these plants, including the one on the East Side, produce both steam and electricity through a process called co-generation. In these plants, the steam leaves the boiler and then goes through pipes into a turbine generator. The resulting spinning of the turbine blades produces electricity. The remaining steam then goes into the steam system.

From the plants, the steam goes into Con Edison's underground pipes. On a cold winter day, nearly 10 million pounds of steam at 350 degrees Fahrenheit flow each hour through 105 miles of underground mains. The pipes coming out of the plant can be several feet in diameter, but the steam travels through progressively smaller pipes, ending at ones that may be only a couple of inches wide.

STERILIZING, HEATING, CLEANING -- NOT SEEPING FROM MANHOLE COVERS

The steam coursing under Manhattan is not to be confused with what is popularly called steam rising from many city manholes. The steam in the pipes is invisible, while the so-called steam wafting up from the streets is often vapor produced when underground water hits hot equipment and escapes from beneath the streets. It can also be condensed steam leaking from the Con Ed system.

Some of the real steam winds up at St. Vincent's Hospital on 12th Street, where the forceps in the operating room are sterilized using steam. Every day nearly 200 cleaning trays of surgical instruments pass through the Central Sterilization unit at St. Vincent's. A cleaning tray can contain anywhere from six to 130 pieces of surgical steel, depending on the size of the instruments. First, the trays are placed in a washer-disinfector, similar to a regular dishwasher. Then the trays go into the sterilizer where steam circulates inside. The intensity of the heat from the steam kills any viral or bacterial pathogens.

Most of the steam, though, is used for heating and cooling. Steam used for heating flows from Con Edison's underground mains into a building's internal heating pipes and then into a radiator where it heats a room. For cooling, steam flows from the main into a building's steam air conditioning unit.

The use of steam eliminates the need for boilers in individual buildings. Because steam from Con Edison's centralized plants is mass-produced, it is generally more economical, efficient and environmentally friendly than individual oil or gas boilers.

Joe Petta of Con Edison compares it to mass transit. "Which is better for the environment, 50 people riding to the city on a bus or 50 people riding 50 different vehicles? The emissions from one bus will be less than the emissions for 50 cars," says Petta. And he adds, the plants that produce steam are subject to "more stringent environmental and emissions controls than individual buildings generating their own heat either by burning gas or oil."

A NEGLECTED POWER SOURCE

Last year, Clean Air Communities -- a project of Con Edison, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the Northeast States Clean Air Foundations -- installed a new steam energy station in an underground vault at the Seward Park Housing cooperative, four apartment buildings with 1,728 apartments in lower Manhattan. The station, which ties into Con Edison's steam system, replaced four onsite oil boilers that burned approximately one million gallons of heavy fuel oil a year. This has eliminated traffic from fuel trucks and markedly cut air pollutants and reduced carbon dioxide emissions.

But many New Yorkers cannot follow Seward Park's example. Converting to steam often requires taking out an old boiler and putting in new piping and other equipment to link up with the steam distribution system. This can prove difficult and costly.

Partly as a result, Petta says, the number of steam customers has not increased in the past few years. "A lot of people don't know about it or don't know it's an option," he says. "Or building owners don't want to go through the conversion process and don't want to spend the money to convert."

And so, for now at least, steam remains New York's neglected power source. "The steam system is a great asset to the city and delivers clean energy," says Ashok Gupta, director of air and energy programs at the National Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. "We can clearly be doing more with it."

New York City Council STATED MEETING - November 6, 2003



New York City Council Stated Meeting Report

Every two weeks the New York City Council meets for its Stated Meeting to introduce and pass legislation. As a regular feature, Searchlight covers these meetings and posts a summary of the bills passed.

STATED MEETING - November 6, 2003

Quote of the Day:

"I am not backing away from the absentee landlord surcharge and I don't think this body should either. It is the first step in making the real property tax in this city a little fairer. And all I have heard from the administration on this subject has been nonsense and gobbledygook that has confused and frightened taxpayers." - Brooklyn Councilmember Lew Fidler, defending the so-called "absentee landlord" tax that the mayor wants to repeal.

Meeting Summary:

In July, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the New York City Council agreed to an "absentee landlord" tax as part of the annual budget agreement. The 25 percent tax applies to landlords who own one-, two-, or three-family houses and use the rent for income. Next year, the tax will go up to 50 percent of the assessed value of the building.

At the time, both sides agreed it would make the city's real estate tax code fairer and generate a much-needed $44 million in revenue. Now, the tax plan has fallen apart.

The city's Department of Finance argues that it is too complicated to administer and is blaming the City Council for implementing it. The mayor says the absentee landlord tax should be repealed. And the City Council says that the finance department is billing the wrong people and failing to provide tax rebates to hundreds of thousands of homeowners who qualify for exemptions.

"This is not incredibly complicated: Do you live in your home or do you not?" said Council Speaker Gifford Miller. "The fact that the Department of Finance, with ten months notice, can't figure that out is deeply troubling."

To try to remedy the situation, the City Council passed a bill (Intro 599-A) requiring the city to issue simple certification forms to ensure that the right people are being taxed and delaying the surcharge until March 2004.

The bill passed by a vote of 40 to 2; Republican Councilmember Dennis Gallagher and Democrat Councilmember Madeline Provenzano voted "no." (Ten council members were absent.) Gallagher and Provenzano said that the measure would not fix the problems and that the tax should be repealed.

But others argued that if the council was going to give a tax break it should go to low-income senior citizens, not landlords who have historically paid lower tax rates than single-family home owners and co-op owners.

"Every member of this council has a better use for $44 million than to give it back to people who get a break that frankly they don't deserve," said Bronx Councilmember Oliver Koppel.

The City Council also passed a bill (Intro 409-A) regulating agencies that collect child support payments. Currently collection companies that seek out payments from "dead-beat" parents are excluded from consumer protection laws. A recent city council report (in pdf form) found that some companies charge high fees, institute complicated contracts that are difficult to cancel, and prey on customers.

"Single parents and children are a vulnerable group," said Brooklyn Councilmember Tracy Boyland, who drafted the legislation. "I have heard reports of a variety of abusive debt collection practices such as agencies bullying grandparents into disclosing their charge accounts numbers and misleading parents and employers into believing that they were dealing with the government."

The council also passed a bill (Intro 596) that ensures that private bus service across the city will continue, even if a new contract is not reached between the companies and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. On December 31, 2003 the current contracts held by seven private bus companies will expire. Approximately 400,000 riders depend on the services.

"Negotiations are still taking place, but it is clear that the MTA will not be able to provide the service by the contract deadline," said Flushing Councilmember John Liu, chair of the council's transportation committee.

Both the child support regulations and the extension of bus service legislation passed unanimously.

The next Stated Meeting is scheduled for November 19.

For an archive of past meetings and council votes, visit Gotham Gazette's Searchlight.

 

 

 



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