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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."
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.
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!
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.