“Outside of the cloud, I can’t even get DSL,” Hale said. “When I’m inside, I can take a picture of one of my onions, plug it into my laptop, and send it to the guys at Subway in San Diego and say, ‘Here’s a picture of my crop.'”
Although the number of Wi-Fi access points continues to increase rapidly, with 72,140 registered worldwide, only a handful of cities have managed to cover their entire urban core with wireless Internet access.
Hundreds of cities from San Francisco to Philadelphia have announced plans to drape a wireless tarp over their communities, and some smaller cities, like Chaska, Minnesota, have done so. But only Ziari seems to have located such a large area.
The wireless network uses short-range Wi-Fi signals and a version of a longer-range related technology known as WiMax. While Wi-Fi and WiMax antennas typically connect to the Internet via a physical cable, the transmitters on this network act as wireless relay points, passing the signal through a technique known as “meshing.”
Ziara’s company built the towers to match the topography. They are up to a quarter mile apart within cities like Hermiston, and up to several miles apart in the desert.
When asked why other municipalities have had a harder time achieving it, he answers: “Politics.”
“If we get the go-ahead, we’ll be able to build a pretty good-sized city in one or two months,” Ziari said. “The problem is getting the go-ahead.”
“The ‘Who’s-going-to-get-a-piece-of-the-action?’ has been a big part of the obstacles,” said Karen Hanley, senior director of marketing for the Wi-Fi Alliance of Austin, Texas, an industry group.
No major players were vying for action here, making the area’s remoteness, which in the past slowed technological progress, key to its advancement.
Morrow County, which borders Hermiston and spans 2,000 square miles, still doesn’t have a single traffic light. It only has 11,000 residents, a number that does not justify a large telecommunications operator making a large investment, said Casey Beard, the county’s emergency management director.
Beard was looking for a wireless service provider two years ago when Ziari knocked on his door. The county first considered its proposal in late 2002, and by mid-2003, some of the cloud had been lifted.
