Wheat Field Wi-Fi

An anonymous reader writes "The world's largest wireless network is not the proposed network in Philadelphia. It's in Walla Wall, Washington. Built by the Columbia Rural Electric Association, the network covers an area larger than the state Rhode Island. The network is already operational in the rural Washington State farming community of Walla Walla."

Comments

Walla Wall?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure that's Walla Walla, not Walla Wall. You know, the place with the onions.

price of a t1

[mattdm]

A T1 isn't much more than this. If I were a local business, I would just buy the T1 and share it out with a few others to defray the costs.

Have you priced out local telco loops for a t1 in a rural area before? It's surprisingly non-economical.

Re:Good for nothing?

[itwerx]

This project sounds like a boon for nobody.

I know one of the guys who installed it. The network was actually put in place for the local municipal offices to connect up to each other. The residential access is secondary, but nonetheless is (obviously) being used to help defray the cost of implementation and maintenance - extreme weather conditions lead to a high replacement rate on some of the equipment.

Re:Good for nothing?

[catherder_finleyd]

Actually, rural highspeed broadband is good for a number of things:

1. Farmers are bigger "international businessman" than you might think. As such, cheap high-speed broadband is another tool they can use to expand US farm exports!

2. Rural areas tend to have a lot cheaper cost of living. Rural broadband can make it possible for IT jobs that might otherwise go to India/China to instead move to rural USA. That can save or even expand American IT jobs. Not to mention provide better quality of life!

Re:Seems a bit pricey compared to other small WISP

[Omega1045]

I was specifically thinking of a friend who did this in rural Iowa. I think he got his T1 loop with internet for a little over $300, and then shared it out with some Cisco aironet equipment to his neighboors. I could be wrong on the numbers as it has been a while since I have spoken with him about it. I know that he got it down to a low enough price so it was economical, and set up a little squid proxy so his neighboors didn't use up all the bandwidth surfing.

Re:Seems a bit pricey compared to other small WISP

[the unbeliever]

He either got a fractional (fractal?) T1 or the infrastructure was already there and they didn't have to run new cable to him.

Info on the State of RI mentioned...

[Apollo Jones]

For the curious, the State of Rhode Island is 1,045 Sq Mi. with about 1,000 persons per Sq. Mi. Rumor has it the state has another 500 Sq. Mi covered by water. It has 408,424 Households with a 1999 per household income of ~42K. With a 2003 estimated population of 1,076,164. For the really curious check out RI Census page http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/44000.html The area is certainly larger than RI. But I would venture to guess that the topology of RI is also very different than Walla Walla. For example, I think RI ranges from 0-800 feet above sea level. Not sure, but I would guess Walla Walla is fairly flat.

Re:Seems a bit pricey compared to other small WISP

[nelsonal]

Households in that part of the country are likely less dense than one per square mile. You gotta cover the value of all that equipment to cover the area. This is the part of the world that might not have had dial up available (if they did it was likely not 56k) and certainly didn't have a local number for a $9.99 ISP.

Precision Agriculture

[benj_e]

Tractors have been computerized for quite some time. Check out NASA's Precision Ag site.

Re:Expensive

[the unbeliever]

Ever priced out the equipment and installation fees for satellite internet?

Also, the ping time is guaranteed to be 1000+ ms (500 up to space, 500 back down, then you have to account for traffic)

Re:Ummm....

[TykeClone]

That sounds like a vast oversimplification. I live in a town of around 600 and I do work with technology and do ok.

We've had DSL in town (and extended to the acreages outside of town) longer than some of the larger communities in the state.

Re:Good for nothing?

[CmdrTostado]

Farming is high tech. GPS systems are available for combines, tractors and crop dusters. They are able to map the fields and apply different amounts of chemicals where the need is different. I have seen (pictures and information about) a linux powered weed spray application system that uses leaf recognition to spray the chemical only where needed. Saves money and the environment. As farmers deal with more and more information they need ways to share it. Perhaps, in the future, they could download improved leaf recognition programs, and instantly upgrade the sprayer. Sneaker-net is a bummer from desk to desk, but it becomes more inefficient as the distance increases.
Oh. I also run an aircraft repair shop in the middle of a wheat field, and I have been using wireless internet at $49 / month for 2 years. It was such a vast improvement over dialup out here, it was like going from black and white to color.

Re:Shouldn't they have used Wi-Max?

[Baldrson]

Here's what David P. Reed has to say about WiMax replacing WiFi:

Delivered-To: dfarber+@ux13.sp.cs.cmu.edu
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 09:59:40 -0400
From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed@reed.com>
Subject: Re: [IP] OUTSIDE THE BOX: Wi-Fi Is Dead, Long Live Wi-Max
X-Sender: mail.reed.com:dpreed@127.0.0.1
To: dave@farber.net, ip@v2.listbox.com

The idea that WiMax replaces WiFi is like thinking that 18 Wheelers replace
private automobiles, or a saw replaces a screwdriver. That such ideas
even pass muster in the "press" is a comment on how little the technology
press understands the technology it covers. (of course the marketers who
tell the press how to think are guilty, too - the idea that the prefix "Wi"
means seems to be "hot new technology that ought to boost the stock price
like -tronics used to").

What WiMax might replace is coaxial cable or DSL copper, or the fantasy of
FTTH - certainly the companies that leverage themselves by huge junk bond
issues to put infrastructure in the ground are vulnerable to a
high-performance, cheap to deploy, rapidly depreciable alternative. In a
stretch it might compete for 3G's slot in the world (if they change the
underlying physical layer to compensate for 60 mph mobility).

Onion ring town

[valkraider]

Or know it because the Walla Walla Sweet Onions are the best onion ring onions in the world... ;)

Also in Washington - Yakima County Wifi Network

[tminusnetwork]

Cisco carries a brief press release on the Yakima County public safety network, a WiFi network that replaced the old repeater/trunking radio network. Yakima county is the second largest (by area)county in Washington state and with careful site planning and radio engineering, they are able to cover almost the entire county with 30 wireless bridges. You have to realize that most of the county is located in a large valley surrounded by fairly tall hills, so it is an ideal candidate for line-of-site networks. But to cover 4,296.1 square miles in such a manner is pretty impressive. http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/wireless/ps 430/prod_business_case09186a00800a9de3.html The press release is very bland compared to the actual implementation. The police and safety officials seem to love it. This network is now becoming a standard for implementation by many of the rural counties in Washington and Oregon.

Walla Walla on Slashdot

[bataeu]

First off I have to say, WOOT, I cant believe my small home town got on slashdot. I mean we had the simpson and bugs bunny but now slashdot. Wow. Anyways, I would like to point out that while Walla might be a small little town this new service is not its only or best solution for internet. You can get cable and dsl in Walla just like any other place and it isnt much more expensive. The farmers can even get cable on the outskirts of town. I suppose they cant get it on their combine but who the hell cares.