Google to offer public Wi-Fi in NYC neighborhood

NEW YORK (AP) -- Google has teamed up with a New York City neighborhood business group to provide the company's first urban Wi-Fi network.

The network will be available free to about a 10-block area surrounding Google's offices in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, where Google has more than 3,000 employees. The area also is home to other tech companies, as well as high-end hotels and nightclubs and a housing project with more than 2,000 tenants.

Google has free Wi-Fi in Mountain View, Calif., where it is based, and in a handful of cities where it has data centers such as Council Bluffs, Iowa, and The Dalles, Ore.

In New York, Google and the Chelsea Improvement Company are paying for the network, which cost $115,000 to set up and will cost $45,000 a year to operate.

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