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The landscape of downstate Illinois stretches out as flat as a tabletop. Only a smattering of silos, television antennas, and trees break a vista that was scraped flat by retreating glaciers thousands of years ago. But for Prairie iNet LLC, a wireless-Internet startup, that plain geography is just perfect. Throughout rural Illinois and Iowa, Prairie iNet is marshaling the power of unobstructed radio waves and antennas mounted on grain elevators to get farmers and other rural residents online. Meanwhile, big telecom companies couldn't figure out how to provide cost-effective service to small communities spread across hundreds of miles.