The CANAMEX Corridor, created by Congress in 1995, is a series of highways connecting Mexico and Canada via rural areas in Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Idaho and Montana.

In Arizona, the corridor follows three highways and spans 487 miles, long portions of which lack reliable cellular and landline service. In April, however, the state started a pilot that will allow first responders to communicate on a Wi-Fi network along a 30-mile stretch of the highway. The network could also bring some much-needed technology to schools in rural areas along the corridor.

In 2003, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano announced plans to transform the Arizona portion of the CANAMEX Corridor into a "smart corridor," showcasing technological solutions to problems such as traveler safety and telecommunications access for rural areas. She formed the CANAMEX Task Force to start creating partnerships and securing grant money to fund smart corridor initiatives.

"[Gov. Napolitano] expressed a desire to make the Arizona segment of the CANAMEX Corridor a smart corridor, thereby improving the lives of those living within the corridor's rural communities and those traveling through it," said Galen Updike, telecommunications development manager for Arizona's Government Information Technology Agency (GITA). "How the vision of a smart corridor was to be fulfilled was left open, and given to the CANAMEX Task Force to solve."

The task force consists of community members who live along the state's southern border with Mexico, and representatives from GITA and the state's departments of Commerce and Transportation. The Arizona Telecommunications and Information Council (ATIC), a nonprofit organization promoting the use of broadband throughout Arizona, also joined the task force.

In May 2004, the Department of Homeland Security's Information Technology and Evaluation Program (ITEP) announced a grant competition to focus on using IT to improve information sharing and integration, especially among first responders.

The ATIC and GITA applied for a grant to test deployment of a Wi-Fi network along one portion of the CANAMEX Corridor to serve first responders with voice and data transmission.

Last fall, the ITEP awarded the Arizona Division of Emergency Management (ADEM) $499,821 to test the Wi-Fi network. Updike said the ITEP generally disburses grants to agencies that are familiar with the DHS' administrative processes, so ADEM will administer the grant money, while GITA will oversee the project and ATIC will implement it.


Test Run
With the help of private-sector partners WI-VOD and RoamAD, the state is conducting a nine-month, proof-of-concept pilot to Wi-Fi-enable a 30-mile stretch of highway from Green Valley in Pima County to Rio Rico in Santa Cruz County.

Allan Meiusi, chief solutions architect of WI-VOD, said the main goal was to provide high bandwidth, user prioritization and proof that Wi-Fi can play an extremely important role in delivering voice and data service cost-effectively.

"We are deploying a string of highly robust municipal networks that are intertwined by an enhanced network management solution to provide a coverage area that can continue to expand as the user base grows and their demand, as well as their usage of the infrastructure, matures," Meiusi said.

To stand a chance at receiving the funds for the project, the grant had to include security guidelines. The groups generalized other successful jurisdictions' uses of secure Wi-Fi, such as that of Graham County, Ariz., which deployed the technology to its departments. As the CANAMEX project gets under way, the groups will define security requirements, said Oris Friesen, ATIC project coordinator. Specifics include the use of encryption and virtual private networks.

WI-VOD deployed a demonstration network at the end of January, and Meiusi said participants were satisfied with the results.

"When we successfully maintained a VoIP conference call with one of the participants moving in excess of 75 miles per hour, we definitely knew we had something," he said, explaining that the