Interstate 405 N @ Artesia Boulevard, 6 pm, 8-11-05------Tropos 5110 Outdoor Wi-Fi Cell

President Bush yesterday signed into law the $286.5 billion transportation act. As he signed the bill, the President said:

"''Our economy depends on us having the most efficient, reliable transportation system in the world."

One way to enhance the efficiency and reliability of the U.S. transportation network is to install wireless broadband Internet access points along highways, byways, roads, and streets.

Doing this would make it possible to install all the functionality of the latest roadside assistance and tracking devices into all new vehicles and retrofit them into existing ones in a cost-efficient way, relying on the power of universal ubiquitous wireless broadband Internet access to provide a wide-range of capabilities to travelers and the vehicles in which they travel.

Lighting up the Interstates, state highways, small town Main Streets, and suburban arterials with high-speed Internet access would enable the delivery of audio and video programming into low-cost (and higher-cost) digital listening and viewing devices installed or carried into vehicles.

Creating a national mesh-network centered on transportation corridors would greatly enhance the capabilities of law enforcement and homeland security personnel to provide protection to the traveling public.

Putting wireless broadband Internet access points in public transportation, such as trains and buses, would allow those using these means of travel to work, chat, listen and watch while on the road, enhancing their in-transit experience and encouraging the use of such digitally-capable mass transit vehicles.

Eventually, such a wireless network would enable a "digital driving grid" that could enhance vehicular safety and allow "drivers" as well as passengers to take full advantage of the wireless cloud of communications capability through which they would be moving.

Even more advantageously, since wireless technologies rely on "mesh architecture," in which networks can be created and then incrementally "built-out" in all directions by adding additional access points, network controllers, and backhaul points-of-presence, every stretch of wireless highway or street created with some of the $286.5 billion in federal funds appropriated by the transportation bill will be able to function as "sand-in-the-oyster" around which more extensive and intensive webs of Internet presence can be built out into surrounding neighborhoods, towns through which roads pass, malls these unwired streets lead to, and schools, hospital, businesses, and residences in every corner of the country, where all the benefits enumerated here, and more, will become available to the individuals and organizations thereby connected.

Finally, having such a system in place would let lonely hitchhikers on the road along deserted stretches of highway keep in touch with friends and business associates while enjoying the unmatched scenic vistas that abound along just such desolate and beautiful stretches of road.

If you'd like to get involved in the emerging effort to convince those spending the $286.5 billion dollars that the best way for the American people to get their money's worth is to build a wireless cloud of broadband Internet connectivity around our large and small transportation corridors, then please join the Wireless Highway Group mailing list by sending an empty e-mail to wihi-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.