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The World Largest WiFi Cloud

Eastern Oregon’s 700 square mile WiFi cloud is getting lots of press thanks to a recent AP story that appeared in Wired, USA Today, ABC and numerous newspapers. It’s old news, of course.

EZ Wireless turned much of Umatilla and Morrow counties into a Wi-Fi cloud a couple of years ago the 600 square mile cloud, encompassed four counties and seven cities for use by the Oregon Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program (CSEPP). A newly developed Incident Response Information System (IRIS) will deliver emergency management services to rugged handheld and laptop computers.

Hermiston and Umatilla Oregon are sitting on a stockpile of deadly nerve gas. The depot stores 220,604 munitions and 7.4 million pounds of deadly nerve and mustard agents. The chemicals being incinerated in a plant specially built for the purpose, but near the town of Hermiston and other communities. The $1.5 million project will help monitor the region, provide communications and allow Hermiston police to control traffic lights on the north-south Highway 395 corridor during an evacuation.

Morrow County Emergency Management Department signed a two-year contract with EZ Wireless for access to the network, and the cities of Boardman and Hermiston also are leasing use of the network for their police, fire and medical emergency workers.

To communicate over the wireless network, IRZ integrated mobile handheld computers for the safety forces. The VAR chose the Tripod Data Systems (Corvallis, OR). A Recon handheld with a military-approved rating for drops, vibration, and temperature extremes is utilized. The handheld can accommodate technology add-ons through its CompactFlash slots, which IRZ used to add GPS.

“We developed geographical, information-based software that displays maps and critical facilities, like schools, hospitals, and other special needs buildings,” says Emmerson. With that software, users of the mobile device can see where a chemical plume is traveling and what citizen locations will be affected. The users can also communicate with one another and from the field to the Emergency Operations Centers in real time.

Some 66 towers standing 75 to 150 feet tall provide coverage. The Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program is a core tenant and has purchased two years of service.

The first phase of the broadband network provided Internet data services at up to 15 megabits/sec to first responders, government agencies and [eventually] private homes. The second phase, with voice-over-IP service, begin in the summer and added seven more cities and 200 square miles to the system’s area of coverage.

First responders can obtain any information from any location within the city and while mobile using a laptop, or handheld PDA. They can securely connect to their office network or to the Internet while in the field to allow them to respond to emergencies fast and effectively.

Who has the “world’s largest WiFi cloud”? Depends who you talk to:

A 1,500-square-mile Wi-Fi hot spot, bigger than the state of Rhode Island, should get the word out.

The Vivato-based regional network covers an area bigger than the state of Delaware, encompassing three counties with a population of about 60,000, according to Tom Husted, chief executive officer of Columbia Rural Electric Association (REA) and its Columbia Energy LLC subsidiary which is building the network.
Portland-based VeriLAN switched on the first pre-Wimax cloud in the United States back in December, 2003 in Portland, Oregon. They also put an Outdoor Vivato on a broadcast television tower for broad area WiFi.
Rick Lindahl, President of Invictus Networks, who initiated the NW Wireless and Security Summit (being held this week in Portland), also designed and built a huge wireless network in Eastern Oregon for irrigation. Invictus is also building a public safety network for police and fire in Washington County.
Wireless Athens was one of the first “city clouds”, covering about 30 square blocks, first with Cisco APs then later with Belair mesh gear. Wireless Philadelphia is one of the newer and largest city clouds planned in the United States. EarthLink will fund, build and manage the 135-square-mile network.
Perhaps the largest regional wireless network in the United States is a Navini non-line-of-sight network (above), which has covered a vast expanse of South Texas, about 5,000 square miles for almost two years. Clients get “wireless DSL” using indoor USB clients and 500kbps-1Mbps speed. No truck roll.
Clearwire, which is owned by wireless industry pioneer Craig McCaw, provides wireless broadband service in parts of Texas, Florida, Oregon and Minnesota and plans service for parts of California soon. Clearwire’s licenses cover 6 BTAs (Basic Trading Areas) around North Carolina. The FCC Universal Licensing System has a lookup feature.Launched last year, Clearwire has raised $300 million and now is operating in Abilene, Texas; Daytona Beach and Jacksonville, Fla.; Medford, Ore.; and St. Cloud, Minn. While Clearwire’s service is wireless, and portable, it’s mainly designed for use in a stationary setting such as a home. Clearwire hopes to move from their proprietary (but somewhat portable) system made by their subsidiary NextNet, to a standards-based system based on 802.16e.
Nextel’s Flarion test served the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill region in 823 square mile Wake County with a population of 1,036,703.
Taipei is making wireless internet access available everywhere in the Taiwan capital by the end of 2005. HP has won the contract to reach almost 90 per cent of the capital’s population of three million. Taipei plans to spend $70m on infrastructure, setting up 15,000 to 20,000 access points around the city, according to HP. Q-Ware will charge users for access.Nortel has announced plans to offer fixed and mobile WiMAX products and to work with Intel and Airspan in bringing them to market.
South Korea s wireless broadband project is expected to cost $784 million to $900 million and provide ubiquitous broadband wireless throughout the country. The nationwide WiBro network will be available nationwide and is expected to pioneer many developments.SK Telecom and Korea Telecom (KT) have 2.3 GHz WiBro licenses thoughout South Korea and plan to launch it next year. They’ll be implementing Videocell Services next year and their mobilied version of WiMax (Wi-Bro).
The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore announced earlier this year that six companies won bids for wireless broadband access in Singapore and are expected to roll out their services next year. The six are MobileOne, inter-touch Holdings, Pacific Internet, Qala Singapore, SingTel, and StarHub. Tokyo
Navini and Arraycomm are facing off in Sydney. Unwired Australia’s main customer base is in Sydney, where the company has more than 28,000 customers in just 10 months of operation after its launch in August 2004.ArrayComm, provides wireless broadband coverage in Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Melbourne, and Sydney (see iBurst Launches in Oz). PBA also owns spectrum in Adelaide, Darwin, Hobart, and Perth, aiming to provide eventual coverage to 95 percent of Australia s business population.