Now, under the new initiative, the city will work to address other factors, such as “digital deserts” in underserved pockets in industrial and manufacturing neighborhoods and lack of connectivity in low-income communities. On the commercial real estate front, a program called WiredNYC will be run by Rudin Management, Jared Kushner and others to evaluate city broadband infrastructure and create transparency, giving businesses information about a building’s connectivity when choosing where to locate, and allowing landlords to market their buildings’ assets and compete for tenants, according to the city. During the two-year period, the program aims to catalogue and rank more than 300 commercial office buildings totaling more than 16 million square feet.

Jonathan Bowles, executive director of the Center for an Urban Future and co-author of the “New Tech City” report, supported the city's efforts. "New York has so much potential to continue growing it's tech sector, but this is one of the clear barriers that needs to be addressed if the city is going to keep the momentum going,” he says, in a statement. “The Bloomberg administration has already done a lot to support tech startups. It deserves a lot of credit for taking on the bandwidth problem."

The city is also collaborating with businesses such as Time Warner Cable on partnership opportunities. Ken Fitzpatrick, president of Time Warner Cable Business Class of the East Region, tells GlobeSt.com in an e-mail: “We applaud Mayor Bloomberg’s new broadband initiatives and are pleased that our expanding fiber network will play such an important role in helping New York City attract business investments. Our fiber optic technology, with its high-bandwidth and superior internet speeds, is ideal for any established or emerging business that needs to be better connected to the world.”