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Rio Rancho, New Mexico: 103 Square Miles of WiFi
An anonymous reader submits "Rio Rancho, New Mexico is going to have 103 square miles of wifi coverage thanks to Intel & Usurf. The Albuquerque International Airport also has free wifi available. (By the way, Rio Rancho also has one of the largest chip factories in the world. Owned by Intel of course.)" The airport service will be free, but though the site is coy about pricing, users will need to sign up (and pay) for the Rio Rancho mesh network. Update: 06/20 03:56 GMT by T : Rio Rancho, not Rio Ranch. Mea culpa.
Can someone fill in the blank? I mean mad props to the engineers on the project, but... ?
I want a new world. I think this one is broken.
On large wireless projects like this, how do you keep the scum of the earth from using it to their advantage? Can a pedaphile buy a cheap wireless card log on for awhile and get his pictures and then just throw out the card when done. Will we have to one day register our mac address's?
The airport has had free WiFi for some time now, although you get what you pay for. My average time connected before getting dropped is about 2 minutes.
And as far as why NM goes....it's really not *that* surprising for those that know the area as Intel and Sprint are the two largest employers in the area. I'm sure they had a hand in encouraging it....
Let's see, 103 square miles.
WiFi would be spherical, or since we're using SQUARE miles, we'll just pretend it's 2D and use Circular.
The equation for the area of a circle is PiR^2 = A where A is Area. The Area is 103 miles, so PiR^2 = 103.
The square root of (103 divided by Pi) = 5.49, approximately.
So this "103 square mile" network is 5.5 miles radius. Not bad, though the number 103 miles makes it look bigger than it is.
I personally seriously doubt that this is ever going to happen. I've had relations with Usurf before and I have nothing positive to say about their management or their tech staff -- the vast majority of which is outsourced to other companies.
Usurf was recently delisted from NASDAQ because they didn't meet the minimum listing requirements. Their stock was near worthless, and is now traded over the counter. Usurf is also currently in receivership to Pipeline Networks, a Colorado ISP they "purchased" and never paid for. There is a _long_ list of local Colorado Springs companies that have been burned by them.
I like the grand aspirations, but I have serious doubts about their ability to produce.
Receivership Link
Recent (horrible) financials
Bleak 10QSB filing
Yeah, after all, Albuquerque/Rio Rancho is only home to an Intel plant, a Honeywell plant, Sandia National Laboratories, The Air Force Research Laboratory (aka Phillips Labs), EMCORE West, Eclipse Aviation, and an assload of other "high-tech" operations that I can't think of offhand. And of course it was the original home of Microsoft... So why would a backwater town like that get something like this?
-30-
There would be substantially less water being consumed by the FAB? Not that Albuquerque is sitting in the middle of the desert, quietly draining the aquifer, happily skipping toward a future where every drop has to be shipped in from the other side of the Sandias. Truly, I can't think of a better place to have built an industrial complex as thirsty as a semiconductor FAB. Oh, wait, I just did - Anywhere. It was a stupid, shortsighted decision to put the FAB in to begin with, and now that its economically critical it will just continue to sit there and suck the only resource of consequence - water. Because honestly, who cares if the Rio Grande is so dry that you can walk across it? Housing sure is cheap out in RR!
Ideology breeds Hypocrisy. Just how much is up to you.