The Biggest Wi-Fi Cloud Is in Rural Oregon

While cities around the country are battling over plans to offer free or cheap Internet access, this lonely terrain is served by what is billed as the world's largest hotspot, a wireless cloud that stretches over 700 square miles of landscape so dry and desolate it could have been lifted from a cowboy tune.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/10/16/D8D9FN780.html


Curious, the big city places still don't have large full coverage Wi-Fi nets yet?

Ideally, we would all be driving on tires that never wear out, 500 horse power trucks that get 60 miles to the gallon, and everyone should be allowed to by a DPMS Kitty Kat in .308, but who would make money then?

Hi Newbie

That is an interesting article. I have done quite a bit of work looking at WiFi as a business proposition. It is not at all straight forward on how to make it all work and make money in a lot of environments. In the open range, distance adds to costs. In cities, physical barriers add to cost.

In all areas, software management of the links is almost as great of a hurdle as the hardware.

I am impressed that he has pulled it off. It is reasonable to assume that cities will never achieve these kinds of systems in the US - it is just not cost effective.

As far as wireless internet in general, I still have some doubts about it in many locations, at least in part, because even though I carefully selected my cell phone service firm many years ago, and there have been many "upgrades", basic cell phone access even in CA covers at best 60 % of the area of the state. The rest is virtually dead - usually where it is needed most - on the roads we travel to go on vacation.

I'm not so sure that the future of Wi-Fi is going to be a for-profit one. I'm seeing it as more of an amenity at hotels, coffeeshops, etc. to encourage more walk-in business.

I've seen at least one local mall that's put in free Wi-Fi, but the only thing that's puzzling ie is this: do you know ANYONE who drags their laptop along with them to a mall while they're shopping? Didn't think so.
:shrug:

PhotonWrangler said:

I'm not so sure that the future of Wi-Fi is going to be a for-profit one. I'm seeing it as more of an amenity at hotels, coffeeshops, etc. to encourage more walk-in business.

I've seen at least one local mall that's put in free Wi-Fi, but the only thing that's puzzling ie is this: do you know ANYONE who drags their laptop along with them to a mall while they're shopping? Didn't think so.
:shrug:

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Pocket PC, and it's great for looking up reviews and comparing prices.

zespectre said:

Pocket PC, and it's great for looking up reviews and comparing prices.

Click to expand...

Granted, that's a good use for it. I've generally found it rather painful to surf the web on a PDA, even when the auto-sizing works correctly and I try to keep my browsing limited to websites that can accomodate the tiny screen, but there are those vertical applications where it's a decent fit.

There's just not a lot of people using it for that, from what I can see. Most of the free public Wi-Fi users I've seen are either students sitting in coffeeshops with their laptops or office folks clamping onto a nearby A/P in order to gain access to stuff that's being blocked by their corporate firewall.

With the new PDAs that have 640x480 res it's not nearly as painful. All the pain came from buying the PDA in the first place (UGH)!