Hotspots on wheels bring WiFi to the middle of nowhere

Those of us that live in cities tend to take for granted the sheer availability of wireless internet. Coffee shops, airports, next-door neighbors, and many other locations afford city dwellers ample opportunity to access the world-wide-web. For residents of rural areas, however, web access isn’t always so easy, making access to news, information, email, and other communication next to impossible. Remember the days before AIM clients on your handheld? Before instant access to email? Neither do we. For some, however, this is still their daily reality, forced to read books and go outside to pass the time. Horrifying. A company called First Mile Solutions is aiming to change all that, saving country folk from a life of intellect and exercise. The company equips buses, motorcycles, and cars with wireless access points. When the vehicle drives through a given town, it automatically connects to a central computer,  that, in turn, jumps on the web and updates a massive quantity of cached content, including news updates and email. Villagers are then able to stroll to the computer at their own pace, gather round the glowing screen, and read about the outside world. Still sounds a bit bleak to me, but at least some progress is being made.

[Via Mobile Mag]

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