The fastest public Wi-Fi we've ever seen hit the streets of New York this week, and it torches Starbucks's Google-provided free Wi-Fi. It's an amazing benefit for anyone traveling to New York, and potentially an even greater one for New York residents. I went and tested them today.

The first of supposedly 7,500 LinkNYC kiosks started to broadcast Wi-Fi yesterday along 3rd Avenue in Manhattan, for about a half-mile above 14th Street. CityBridge, a Qualcomm-backed consortium, has pledged to build 510 kiosks by July, and 7,500 by 2020. Although, given delays in other New York infrastructure projects, I'd take that second date with a big grain of salt.

The kiosks are all wired with gigabit fiber and a Vonage VoIP phone in the front for free, global calling, all of which is paid for via giant advertising panels on the side. There are also two USB charging ports under the phone panel, and the phone's tablet face can also be used for maps and Web browsing, LinkNYC says.

For now, the tablets aren't turned on, and the only thing you get is Wi-Fi. But the Wi-Fi is really good. The most impressive thing is the range. I tested two kiosks, at 20th Street and 16th Street. (Interestingly, the kiosks are often installed in pairs across the street from each other.) The 20th Street kiosk had a usable range of a little less than 200 feet, which is amazing. The 16th Street kiosk was usable to about 125 feet, still pretty impressive for public Wi-Fi.

Logging into the kiosks is simple. You don't need to create a username and password, although you have to enter your email address for mailings. Once you've entered your email address, you have the option to install a Hotspot 2.0 trusted network profile for recent iPhones, which enables a secure auto-login from there on out. I strongly suggest doing so. Everyone else just has to go through the portal page to log in.

The speeds crush other local free Wi-Fi providers. One of the kiosks was just outside a Starbucks, so I could sit in the Starbucks and compare them. The Starbucks Wi-Fi was clearly capped to about 15Mbps down and 2Mbps up; I got very flat, similar results on repeated Ookla speed tests. The LinkNYC connection averaged 245Mbps down and 209Mbps up in the same location.

And that Starbucks, which was pretty empty, outpaced other free Wi-Fi businesses I tested. In a nearby Dunkin Donuts, the cap was at 10Mbps down and 2Mbps up. In a much busier Starbucks, with many people using mobile devices, average speeds were down to 7.4Mbps down and 0.4Mbps up as the network was congested.

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The LinkNYC kiosk at 20th Street, meanwhile, offered 93Mbps down even 100 feet away. That's amazing. Obviously, speeds will slow down once there are more people on the network, but it looks like these kiosks have plenty of headroom.

The range is important because it makes LinkNYC far more useful than it first appears. You don't have to be standing near a pillar to be connected; you can be in a nearby business, or (here's where things get interesting) a nearby home. LinkNYC probably won't replace mobile LTE networks, although its network is dense enough in Manhattan that many locals may be able to step down on their data plans. But if it can reach into apartment building windows, it may offer an alternative for low-income New Yorkers, and others who have felt betrayed as Verizon has failed on its promise to install FiOS citywide. The company has a full privacy policy online, which is pretty standard ISP stuff.

LinkNYC says the first 510 kiosks will go up 3rd Avenue and 8th Avenue from 14th Street, and also be placed in "northern Manhattan," the South Bronx, Jamaica Queens, along Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn and near the Staten Island Ferry on the Staten Island side.

You can follow the installations on Twitter @linkNYC.

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