By Rukmini Callimachi, Associated Press, Appearing in USATODAY.com
One of the stumbling blocks urbanites first encounter is the notion that getting back to the land means leaving behind something none of us can admittedly live without anymore.... high speed internet. According to PewInternet's Feb 2006 research report, only 24% of rural residents have high speed service compared to 39% of urban or suburban dwellers.
I'll address some other solutions for the wannabee city escapees in another post, but I found the above linked USATODAY article from October of last year just downright fascinating. Who woulda thunk it? The biggest wi-fi cloud right here in Oregon?
Farm unit manager Chris Monkman kneels in an onion field and uses a laptop with wireless capabilities in Hermiston, Ore.
Photo by Don Ryan, AP
HERMISTON, Ore. — Parked alongside his onion fields, Bob Hale can prop open a laptop and read his e-mail or, with just a keystroke, check the moisture of his crops.
As the jack rabbits run by, he can watch CNN online, play a video game or turn his irrigation sprinklers on and off, all from the air conditioned comfort of his truck.
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.
A single wireless entrepreneur, Fred Ziari, funded the $5 mil "cloud" for the area. While immediate recouperation of costs was impossible, the wi-fi network offers far more potential than merely offering the public e-mail and internet services in the middle of nowhere. "The same wireless system is used for surveillance, for intelligent traffic system, for intelligent transportation, for telemedicine and for distance education," said Ziari, who immigrated to the United States from the tiny Iranian town of Shahi on the Caspian Sea.
Businesses in this small populated span benefitted highly from the costly enterprise... such as the Hermiston police, who now can have their squad cars equipped with wireless laptops. Or Hale's (photo above) onion enterprise that provides over 2/3rds of the red onions to the Subway restaurant chain.
"Outside the cloud, I can't even get DSL," said Hale. "When I'm inside it, I can take a picture of one of my onions, plug it into my laptop and send it to the Subway guys in San Diego and say, 'Here's a picture of my crop.'"
Since the high desert around Hermiston also happens to be the home of one of the nation's largest stockpiles of Cold War-era chemical weapons, emergency responders in the three counties surrounding the depot now have wi-fi laptops to not only measure size of direction of an accidental leak, but to direct evacuees in the field. Even the area's single traffic light and emergency message billboards can be controlled thru the wi-fi cloud.
The Columbia River Port of Umatilla is another beneficiary, utilizing the network for a high-tech security perimeter that will scan bar codes on incoming cargo.
So when can the rest of us city escapees expect such a clou in our rural 'hood? We'll know that when the dust clears after sundry battles fought in the not only in the courts and private sector, but the legislature as well.
In the meantime, you don't have to accept simple dial up as the trade off for a rural lifestyle... Stay tuned for more.
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