Google may be preparing the phone booth of the future. The tech giant was one of over 60 companies represented in a New York City project to update pay phone sites and create “communication points” with free WI-Fi and cell phone charging stations. The list of interested companies was released on Jul. 21, along with the deadline for submitting proposals.

The city envisions the communication points as essentially pay phones brought into the 21st century. The proposed project could bring together a wide range of technologies to the New York pay phone sites that would include free Wi-Fi for at least 85 feet around each site that has advertising, as well as phone service and the ability to make free 911 emergency and 311 information calls. Other services could include cell phone charging stations, local calls for free, text messaging, touchscreens for information, and built-in environmental sensors.

Other potential participants in the project include Samsung, IBM, Cisco Systems, Verizon Wireless, Cablevision, and Time Warner Cable. Despite previous false starts, the plan is to cover New York’s cityscape with free public Wi-Fi. This would be a high profile project, with more than 7,000 pay phone sites spread across the five boroughs. And though the Wi-Fi element is intended as a free service, applicants can propose selling some of the network’s capacity to help ease traffic on current cellular networks.

While Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment, the Internet search company is more than capable of capitalizing on this project and other forms of Internet access. It is currently selling gigabit-speed service via fiber optics in Provo, Utah, and Kansas City, and plans to expand that service to Austin, Texas. Future expansion proposals suggest the possibility of adding Wi-Fi to that service.

The pay phones are currently owned and operated by 10 companies with franchise agreements that expire with the city in October. The landline phones, often forgotten in the cellular age, returned to the spotlight in 2012 when they served as lifelines after cellular networks were damaged in the wake of Superstorm Sandy.