The Biggest WiFi Hotspot in the World

925M is a website about telecommunications, that included this info today.

“Bet you thought San Fran was getting the best Wi-fi vantage. Well, apparently according to a CNN article today, the world’s largest hotspot, a wireless cloud that stretches over 700 square miles of landscape, is not in any metropolitan city. Instead it blankets a wide-stretched onion field in dry and desolate Hermiston, Oregon.

According to the report, after hearing word that the tumble weed town wasn’t of interest to local phone company Qwest Communication International, entrepreneur Fred Ziari built the $5 million Wi-fi cloud out of pocket. The service is free so you have to wonder how he plans on recovering his losses. CNN explains that “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.”

As for Ziari’s response to this Wi-fi launch he said, “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.”