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Rio Rancho, New Mexico: 103 Square Miles of WiFi

Posted by timothy on from the pleasures-of-the-mesh dept.

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.

6 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Wow, now the aliens will be impressed by thepeete · · Score: 4, Funny

    They'll be able to download music right from area 51.

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  2. keeping the scum out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?

    1. Re:keeping the scum out by spacefrog · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You forget just how easy it is to clone/fake a mac address.

      That is not too hard, even for idiotic scum who are trying to cover their tracks.

      Just wait until they start figuring out how (with subpeonas) to cross reference the mac address to the distributor it was sold to, and then cross-reference that against the serial number on your receipt.

      You do buy all of your ethernet/wifi cards with cash, don't you?

      Just wait until it is YOUR mac address they have cloned. The Melinda virus escapade a few years ago shows that a mac address is sufficient for a search warrant.

  3. Re:I should care because ____ ? by challahc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Seems like the cost of bandwidth would be trivial. If it is actually possible to stop using land lines all together, then the majority of the costs would be associated with maintaining WiFi equipment. You wouldn't be paying an ISP to make sure that you are connected, it's your responsibility.

    Of course, this would be in a utopian WiFi world.

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  4. Some perspective by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    Here's some data for comparison:
    • San Francisco: 47 square miles
    • Boston: 48 square miles
    • Washington DC: 68 square miles
    • Rio Rancho: 103 square miles
  5. Rio Rancho by jmorzins · · Score: 4, Informative

    For pete's sake, timothy, it's "Rio Rancho", not "Rio Ranch". The submitter spelled it correctly twice, and you didn't double-check before "correcting" it for the title?