LOS ANGELES TIMES
Monday, January 02, 2006
HERMISTON, Ore. — Barreling down U.S. 395, through remote farmland not far from a massive storage facility for old chemical weapons, Fred Ziari beckoned his passenger to jump on the Internet.
"OK, go ahead," Ziari, an Iranian-born entrepreneur trained as an agricultural
engineer at Texas A&M University, said with a touch of glee. "Launch
your browser. It's free!"
Fast, free broadband wireless access to the Internet might seem an unlikely
amenity for this remote patch of the country. But, in a roughly 700-square-mile
area across five counties in Oregon and Washington, unimpeded Wi-Fi access
is being given a trial run by people, police departments, shippers and even
onion brokers.
But the reason this wireless hot spot — believed to be the largest in the nation — was set up in the first place was not for those potential markets; it was built as an emergency communications system in the event of a leak at the Umatilla Chemical Depot, where nearly 4,000 tons of sarin, mustard and other Cold War-era nerve gases are stored in concrete igloos.
The wireless network, which cost about $5 million to set up, is almost entirely paid for with federal, state and local emergency-preparedness funds. Ziari runs the company that built and maintains the system.
In a disaster, officials here say, the wireless network will provide vital communications across the area about evacuation plans and the wind direction of any leak.
Despite that sobering reality, area residents seem to be looking at the brighter side of the network's usefulness, including its potential to attract business to the area. In the Hermiston area, many houses and farms are so far out in the country that they have neither cable nor high-speed DSL lines. Thus the wireless network faced little protest when it was started two years ago.
Ziari's system uses dozens of antennae to pick up and broadcast a signal. Technically a combination of short-range signals known as Wi-Fi and longer-range ones known as WiMax, the combined effect creates a wireless "cloud" enabling access from almost anywhere in the Hermiston area.
"It has opened our eyes to all kinds of possibilities," said Kim Puzey, general manager of the Port of Umatilla, which is near the convergence of the Columbia and Snake rivers and is one of the largest grain ports in the country. "We're no longer confined by wires."
Port workers, farmers and shippers already communicate data about shipments via the network. Longer-range, Puzey said, the port envisions a system that will not only verify for shippers where their goods are, it will let them see the goods.
Hermiston's 23-officer police department also uses it.
"Our officers now can get and send information directly over the Internet," Police Chief Dan Coulombe said. "They don't have to come in to write up every single report. . . . That's saving us 2,000 hours of time annually right there."
People acknowledge that the system probably would not have been affordable were it not for the chemical depot several miles outside Hermiston.
Local schools conduct drills in preparation for a deadly leak — all windows and doors are sealed shut and the air filtered. There has never been a severe spill or leak of the gases, much of which are being destroyed.
And so, residents tend to look at the upside of their network.
Ziari's company, EZ Wireless LLC, maintains the Wi-Fi system. He is energized by the potential of wireless technology.
"We are bridging the digital divide here," said Ziari, 52. "I really believe this technology is going to revolutionize the world."