Wi-Fi that crashed has cost city $900M
New York City’s internal wireless network, which crashed earlier this month, has over the last decade morphed into a nearly $900 million taxpayer money pit that’s about to get much deeper.
Since Northrop Grumman was tapped in 2006 to build and run the New York City Wireless Network — also known as NYCWiN — the global-defense contractor has racked up $891.1 million in payments off an initial five-year deal and two renewals, an examination of more than 400 pages of city records found.
This includes at least $55.1 million in unanticipated cost overruns the city agreed to pay Northrop Grumman for construction work and services not included in the original agreements. The contractor could also pocket up to $11.8 million more for added work by the time its current three-year deal expires June 11.
The city’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications told The Post it also plans to extend the contract another year through mid-June 2020 — a move that will likely cost taxpayers at least $40 million more based on previous spending.
With all this extra money we’ve kicked in, you’d think . . . we’d be getting a bigger bang for our buck, but we haven’t. Queens Councilman Robert Holden
“It appears to me that we’re getting taken to the cleaners,” said Queens Councilman Robert Holden. “With all this extra money we’ve kicked in, you’d think [the network] would be better protected and we’d be getting a bigger bang for our buck, but we haven’t.”
Despite pouring a fortune into a cellular-antenna infrastructure created to help agencies control traffic lights, license-plate readers used by cops and other key functions, NYCWiN still suffered a preventable 10-day crash this month.
Comptroller Scott Stringer and local lawmakers want to know why NYCWiN’s software wasn’t updated before a Y2K-like bug caused the network to go dark April 6 through last Tuesday.
Only a year earlier, the federal government issued a warning that a time-counter “rollover event” could affect GPS-enabled devices like NYCWiN — yet neither Northrop Grumman nor the city tech department under Commissioner Samir Saini took precautions.
Holden, who sits on the council’s technology committee, said he spoke to Saini and other DoITT officials Friday and “learned” DoITT feels “trapped” into extending the contract with Northrop Grumman because “no one” in city government “knows how to deal with the NYCWiN software.”
“It’s like we’re at the contractor’s mercy,” he said.
City Council members — including Speaker Corey Johnson — said they expect to review the deal, including potentially holding oversight hearings where city tech officials would testify. Bronx Councilman Ritchie Torres, who chairs the oversight and investigations committee, wants a more extensive probe by the Department of Investigation because “lives were put at risk” by the network crash.
Northrop Grumman did not return messages.
DoITT spokeswoman Stephanie Raphael said Northrop Grumman “is the only vendor that can operate NYCWiN” but claimed the agency “is in the process” of switching over “to a system that will utilize cellular carriers.”