HERMISTON — Here in an area spanning 700 square miles, the site of a vast wireless Internet cloud, farmer Bob Hale can prop open a laptop among the scrub brush and check his e-mail.
He can also check the moisture level of his onion field while sitting inside his air-conditioned truck.
And as the jack rabbits run by, he can watch CNN online or play a video game among the tumbleweeds. Or he can turn on the irrigation sprinklers with a keystroke, or turn them off.
While some of the country’s largest cities struggle to offer cheap Wi-Fi access, one of the least populated counties in the nation has created what is billed as the world’s largest hotspot, a wireless cloud that stretches over a landscape so dry and desolate it could have been lifted from a cowboy tune.
Similar wireless projects have been stymied in major metropolitan hubs such as Philadelphia by opposition from telephone giants, who have poured money into legislative bills aimed at curbing low-cost municipal Wi-Fi.
But here among the thistle, wireless entrepreneur Fred Ziari faced no resistance from the large providers — who see little gain in such a sparsely populated market — allowing him to quickly build the $5 million cloud at his own expense.
While his service is free to the general public, Ziari is financing the setup cost through contracts with more than 30 city and county agencies and with big farms, such as Hale’s, whose onion empire supplies over two-thirds of the red onions used by the Subway franchise. Morrow County, for instance, pays Ziari around $180,000 per year.
"Outside the cloud, I can’t even get DSL," said Hale. "When I’m inside it, I can take a picture of one of my onions, plug it into my laptop and send it to the Subway guys in San Diego and say, ‘Here’s a picture of my crop,’ " he said.
Even as hotspots are mushrooming, with 72,140 now registered globally, only a handful of cities have managed to blanket their entire urban core. Cities from San Francisco to Chaska, Minn., to St. Cloud, Fla., have announced plans to put their communities under a wireless tarp — but only Ziari appears to have pinned down such a large area.
Asked why other municipalities have had a harder time succeeding, the engineer replies: "Politics."
"If we get a go-ahead we can do a fairly good-sized city in a month or two," said Ziari, who immigrated to the United States from the tiny Iranian town of Shahi on the Caspian Sea. "The problem is getting the go-ahead."
"The ‘Who’s-going-to-get-a-piece-of-the action?’ has been a big part of the obstacles," said Karen Hanley, senior marketing director of the Austin, Texas-based Wi-Fi Alliance, a nonprofit that acts as an umbrella organization for wireless efforts across the country.
No major players were vying for the action here, making the area’s remoteness — which in the past has slowed progress — the key to its advance.
To date Morrow County, which borders Hermiston and spans 2,000 square miles, still doesn’t have a single traffic light.
It only has 11,000 people, a number that does not justify a large telecom player making a big investment, said Casey Beard, the director of emergency management for the county, who was looking for a wireless provider two years ago, when Ziari came knocking.
The county first considered his proposal at the end of 2002 and by mid-2003 part of the cloud was already up.
Although remote, the high-desert around Hermiston also happens to be the home of one of the nation’s largest stockpiles of Cold War-era chemical weapons. Under federal guidelines, local government officials were required to devise an emergency evacuation plan in case the nerve and mustard agents were accidentally released into the community.
Now, emergency responder in the three counties surrounding the Umatilla Chemical Depot are equipped with laptop computers that are Wi-Fi ready. In the case of a leak, their PC’s would detail the size of the fume and its direction, enabling responders to direct evacuees from the field. Traffic lights and billboards posting evacuation messages can also be controlled remotely, using Wi-Fi.
"We had to find a way to transmit huge amounts of data — pictures, plume charts. ... All that data is very complex and it’s hard over radio to relay to someone wearing chemical protective gear," said Beard.
For the Columbia River Port of Umatilla, one of the largest grain ports in the nation, the wireless network is being used to set up a high-tech security perimeter that will scan bar codes on incoming cargo.
"It has opened our eyes and minds to possibilities. Now that we’re not tied to offices and wires and poles, now what can we do?" said Kim Puzey, port director.
And for the Hermiston Police Department, having squad cars equipped with a wireless laptop means officers can work less overtime by being able to file their reports from the field.
While the Wi-Fi was initially set up for the benefit of city and county officials, it’s the area’s businesses that stand to gain the most, say industry experts.
"Look at the analogy of water and air conditioning. Thirty years ago, you would go somewhere and say, ‘Boy, I’m so glad it’s air-conditioned. Now you go, and of course it is," said Hanley of the Wi-Fi Alliance. "There is absolutely an expectation today that there will be Wi-Fi. Between 70 to 90 percent of all new laptops are Wi-Fi ready," she said.
Chris Monkman, 30, is not particularly concerned with checking his e-mail or watching CNN. On most days, he’s too busy checking on his boss’ onion fields to play video games in the scrub brush. What he is hoping for is some peace of mind and the chance to sleep in on the weekend.
"Without this, I have to call someone and they turn it on," said Monkman pointing to the sprinklers spewing water on Bob Hale’s onion fields. "And then I have to go out and check. Versus turning it on from the seat of my pickup. ... And it’s real nice if you don’t want to come out on a Sunday morning," he said.