From the Daily News:TWO YEARS after unveiling a $549 million public-safety wireless data network that the NYPD and FDNY have been slow to embrace, the Bloomberg administration tried and failed to sell it back to its builder.
Bloomberg aides approached the defense giant Northrop Grumman last year about purchasing the system, dubbed the New York City Wireless Network (NYCWiN), and then leasing it back to the city.
Since its launch in 2009, NYCWiN has attracted far fewer users than its capacity, and the system is costing more than $38 million annually to maintain, documents obtained by the Daily News show.
The city made the offer during negotiations on a new five-year contract for Northrop to service the system, a spokesman for the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications confirmed this week.
But the company rejected the concept and opted instead for another $200 million contract just to maintain the system for the next five years.
So why would City Hall want to sell a network it has trumpeted as assuring vital public-safety data in case of another natural disaster or terrorist attack?
Well, officials are reluctant to admit it, but its public safety agencies aren’t exactly embracing NYCWiN.
So we're being microwaved by city-owned towers for nothing? Who got rich off this contract?
5 comments:
It should be shoved down the throats of the nypd & nyfd - PERIOD. They obviously assisted in evaluating it and now that the money is spent they should be embracing it. It certainly addresses issues that were noted in the 9/11 tragedy thus it should be fully implimented and used until something else comes along - what is the objections to this system and the chiefs have a duty to implement it.
Obviously Mr. $1 a year is your leading suspect.Those mysterious trips overseas at "inconvenient" times? He's just keeping tabs on all the emolument which his no-bid contract letting has earned him. The wires to the Cayman Islands,Bermuda and Mauritius (among others) must've really been burning up. Guess he's still got some major law enforcement folks on his payroll.
It should be shoved down the throats of the nypd & nyfd - PERIOD. They obviously assisted in evaluating it and now that the money is spent they should be embracing it. It certainly addresses issues that were noted in the 9/11 tragedy thus it should be fully implimented and used until something else comes along - what is the objections to this system and the chiefs have a duty to implement it.
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Why put the lives of the cops and firemen on the street in jeopardy just because of the foolishness of the politicians and the police and fire brass?
$549 million ???
Time to let engineers run things like this and keep the politicians out of it.
Shame on the Daily News - this is a copy of the Post's November story on the same subject.
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