A Broadband Boom in the Boondocks

A massive injection of spectrum might be about to revolutionize the digital infrastructure of rural America.

For a glimpse of the wireless future, take a look at the Yurok Indian reservation, an out-of-the-way spot just south of the California-Oregon border at the mouth of the Klamath River. There, among the giant redwoods, stand three new towers built to create a new type of wireless network, known as "super Wi-Fi."  If the U.S. Federal Communications Commission gets its way, super Wi-Fi will become a key part of rural America's digital infrastructure.

Most people living on the Yurok's 63,000-acre reservation lack phone service. Almost none have high-speed Internet. The new towers aim to fix both problems. Unlike regular Wi-Fi networks, which are generally limited to beaming high-speed Internet around a house, super Wi-Fi promises to blanket entire neighborhoods with high-speed access. 

A Yurok tribal spokesman says the new signals will reach even into the steep-walled valleys that play havoc with most wireless signals. The tribe plans to start testing the system this week.

The FCC is so enthused with the idea of super Wi-Fi that it took the idea nationwide last month, issuing final rules that will free any town or county to do what the Yurok have done.  On Monday, FCC chairman Julius Genachowski proposed a way to pay for much of that infrastructure that would be needed to support municipal Super Wi-Fi. He wants to convert the current system of rural phone subsidies, which now total $8 billion a year, into a more modern system that can pay for things like super Wi-Fi.