VOIP At 80 MPH: World's First Wi-Fi Highway

I-19, the Canamex Interstate Highway, is the home of the "world's first highway Wi-Fi mobile voice and high speed data network," from Rio Rico to South of Green Valley, Arizona according to New Zealand based RoamAD, which supplied the Wi-Fi mesh software used in the network's infrastructure.

In a live demo users were able to make multi-party VOIP conference calls at over 80 miles per hour across the network.

The network is being built by the Wi-VOD Corporation under a grant from the US Department of Homeland Security, and uses RoamAD's mesh technology for scalable metro Wi-Fi networks.

Initially the network will serve police, fire, ambulance and US Border Patrol operations. Later, according to RoamAD, other "community agencies, schools, business and local residents" will be added as the network expands.

Rio Rico Fire Deparment Chief Mike Foster said that "Having mobile voice and high-speed Internet access in our mobile units on the highways delivers what we are looking for. The speed at which the mobile VOIP worked was very impressive."

The network will cover 32 miles of the highway by May this year. It is unclear if Wi-VOD's demo of VOIP at highway speeds occurred on more than the initial 4.9 mile phase of the network, which was completed earlier in February.

RoamAD said the network includes a node "on average 1.2 miles apart and interconnected wirelessly."