Montana

Location(s)

Nevada, MO (pronounced Ne-vay-duh) wanted broadband access for its residents, but providers wouldn’t build it. So, in 2003, the city, with the help of WISP NeighborLink Wireless, built its own citywide wireless network. The network cost $20,000 to build, and is used by residents, police, and other local officials. About a year later, SBC (now AT&T) began offering traditional broadband service. This significantly cut into sales, but the network remains popular enough to be economically viable. Nevada is currently retooling the network to make it easier for small businesses in town to resell the service.

The city sees the wireless network as a way to enhance local economic development, and the project follows on the city’s 1997 telecenter project, which had similar goals. The Nevada TeleCenter houses two interactive video classrooms for 25 students each; a satellite downlinked classroom for 50 participants; a multimedia production room equipped to produce educational and training materials; and five computer work stations for free public access to the Internet.

Learn More:

Rural Town Creates Unique Solution for Technology Problem. City of Nevada, 2006. http://www.nevadamo.org/pages/press/neighborlink.htm

NeighborLink Wireless (recently acquired by Inetvisions)
http://www.inetvisions.net/

Nevada, Missouri - Nevada Telecommunity. Smart Communities Profiles. Industry Canada, December 1999.
http://198.103.246.211/profiles/nevada_e.asp

Location(s)

Two researchers (see below) investigated whether WiFi could be a cost-effective technology to provide broadband access to users in rural and remote regions. They found that it was. To make their assessment realistic, the researchers modeled a real rural area: Gallatin County, Montana. They modeled the entire county, including the major towns, satellite communities, and widely scattered rural population. The study includes a financial analysis of a number of possible models, and while it focuses on the example of Gallatin County, the study is designed to be useful to rural communities more widely.

Learn More:

Crossing the Digital Divide: Cost-Effective Broadband Wireless Access for Rural and Remote Areas. M. Zhang and R. S. Wolff. IEEE Communications Magazine. February 2004: 99-105. www.coe.montana.edu/ee/rwolff/Divide-rev4.pdf