Vast Wi-Fi cloud stretches over fields of onions and thistle

HERMISTON, Ore. — Here in an area spanning 700 square miles, site of a vast wireless Internet cloud, onion farmer Bob Hale can prop open a laptop among the scrub brush and check his e-mail.

Without plugging in a single wire, he can also check the moisture level on his field of onions, sitting inside his air-conditioned truck.

As the jackrabbits run by, he can watch CNN and play a video game among the tumbleweeds — or he can turn on the sprinklers and, with a keystroke, add more pesticide to his soil.

Even as the some of the largest cities in the country struggle over whether to offer free Wi-Fi access, one of the most undeveloped counties in the nation has succeeded in creating what is billed as the world's largest hot spot, a wireless cloud that stretches over a dry and desolate landscape ripe for a cowboy tune.

Similar projects have been stymied in cities from Philadelphia to Portland by stiff opposition from telephone giants, who have poured money into bills aimed at curbing municipal Wi-Fi.

But here among the tumbleweeds, wireless entrepreneur Fred Ziari faced no resistance from the large providers, allowing him to quickly build the $5 million cloud. While the service is free to the general public, Ziari is financing it through contracts with more than 30 city and county agencies, which act as his core tenants.

"Before we started this here, we couldn't even get a 24K dial-up. We're in the middle of nowhere," said Ziari, an engineer from the tiny Iranian town of Shahi on the Caspian Sea, who's made it his mission to blanket the world in Wi-Fi.