What is reputed to be the largest wireless cloud in the U.S. is in Oregon. Conventional wisdom has it that only densely populated metropolitan areas can support wireless Internet services. This CNN story matches what I’ve seen here in Texas. Texas spent $200 million a year to start rural Internet projects (which is another story), but the only successful rural wireless ISPs I know of (two of them headquartered within 12 miles of my house) never took a cent of government grant money and ignored the conventional wisdom. They seem to be doing fine.

The Oregon WISP is taking government money, but not grants.

The Oregon WISP is taking money from governments as paying customers:

While his service is free to the general public, Ziari is recovering the investment through contracts with more than 30 city and county agencies, as well as big farms such as Hale’s, whose onion empire supplies over two-thirds of the red onions used by the Subway sandwich chain. Morrow County, for instance, pays $180,000 a year for Ziari’s service.

Much like the case in Japan, access is perhaps not as important as applications:

Each client, he said, pays not only for yearly access to the cloud but also for specialized applications such as a program that allows local officials to check parking meters remotely.

“Internet service is only a small part of it. 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.

Maybe that has something to do with why Ziari could do this: not being from the U.S., he maybe wasn’t infected with the Internet sluggishness that seems to have the rest of the country in a torpor.

It’s revolutionizing the way business is conducted in this former frontier town.
— Biggest Wi-Fi Cloud Is in Rural Oregon By Rukmini Callimachi, 16 October 2005

And not only is it a bit WISP, it’s one that works as a mesh, and that incorporates WIMAX.

It’s too bad U.S. big cities can’t get their act together to do this. Or the U.S. as a whole, for that matter.

-jsq

PS: Thanks to spq for the pointer.