Wireless Oregon
Take a guess: where’s the biggest wi-fi cloud in the world? It’s not in Redmond OR Palo Alto — it’s in Umatilla County, Oregon. Most of the area covered is rural. Very rural, as in sagebrush-and-jackrabbits rural.
Fred Ziari is the entrepreneur who made this happen. He said that it was easy to do because of the lack of politics and backroom deals: there’s no big business in the area, and therefore none of the bigger players (phone companies, cable companies) had any interest in fighting over the market.
I learned about this in this morning’s Spokesman-Review, but after doing a few searches I found a little more info in a Wired artice. I drive through Umatilla county every year or two on the way to visit my Uncle Irv in Baker City, so I’m looking forward to trying it out firsthand. The thought of sitting in the middle of nowhere checking my email, not far from the old ruts of the Oregon Trail … beautiful.
Ziari’s company, EZwireless, has an interesting business model. They’ve rolled out this wi-fi coverage and provided it for free to individuals, while charging local governments and large businesses for value-added versions of the service. Could this model catch on? Might the boonies become more wireless-friendly than the big cities in some states? Stay tuned …
This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 18th, 2005 at 9:44 am. You can subscribe to comments on this post through its RSS feed.
on March 16, 2006 at 1:00 pm Leroy wrote:
Doug,
As a local insider, let me explain the ‘hooey’ regarding the EZwireless world model…
First, this was not an entreprenural project - it was a military project, funded by the public.
EZ was funded in large part by the Federal Government. The local Chemical Weapons facility is required to have a certain level of emergency communications to it’s mobile first responders, in case of emergency. Ziari’s company was the recipient of several MILLION dollars to build an emergency services wifi solution, allowing for limited public access.
Those who live here and work as first responders will tell you that it does not function correctly. It does not cover a wide area, but only the main corridor down hwy 395, and in Boardman, Heppner, Umatilla, Hermiston, Irrigon.
Each town has dead spots, etc. This not a continuous wifi cloud, but a series of small (very small) 2.4 ghz wireless networks connected together via fiber optic.
The initial premise was that EZ would provide seamless sessions, passing from tower to tower, and wifi tower to CELL TOWER. This would have been EXCELLENT as a solution, if they ever got it working.
As a ‘competitor’ who actually provides broadband wifi and fiber optics to EZ and to residents, government, and businesses out here, it is interesting to see the hype continue about a semi-functional wifi network.
Two last notes - the free residential service allows port 80 only, so no email or gaming allowed.
Lastly, the free residential service option is not all that it seems - the reason for the free service is not philanthropic, but financial: they do not want to deal with business or residential technical support.
SO, if you can pick it up with your laptop or are savvy enough to buy a $200 CPE, you have it made, but with most of the local non-techies, dark ages and dial up are still the norm.
Unless you choose one of the other three WIFI businesses in Morrow / Umatilla counties.
on March 16, 2006 at 1:05 pm Doug wrote:
Thanks for all the great info, Leroy! You know, I thought that whole story seemed a bit odd … your explanation of the true financial structure makes it make more sense.