Photo: CityBridge

Soon you will never again be able to use the “My phone died!” excuse to get out of brunch plans. According to the Verge, New York is planning the largest and most ambitious free public Wi-Fi project in the world. Strangely, the plan centers entirely on pay phones, those urine-soaked structures sporadically dotting street corners that are currently known as “drug mailboxes.”

The plan is called LinkNYC and will swap out the city’s remaining pay phones for touch-screen pillars that will provide gigabit Wi-Fi, “free domestic phone calls (including 911 and 311), a charging station for your phones, and a ‘touchscreen tablet interface to access City services, directions, and more.’”

The next-gen pay phones will reportedly cost tax payers zero dollars and be entirely advertising-supported — which sounds great! Until they start spying on you.