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Mobile phones without towers coming soon [telecom]

Article from 'The Age', Austraila.

Note: A video on the web-side shows software on the handsets allowing direct voice calls from one handset to another using the Wi-Fi capabilities of the handsets.

Mobile phones without towers coming soon September 1, 2011

A mobile phone communications system that doesn't need towers is being developed at Adelaide's Flinders University.

The Serval Project was inspired by the 2010 Haiti earthquake in which the phone network crashed as infrastructure went down.

Creator Paul Gardner-Stephen said the earthquake showed the lack of resilience in a communications system that relied on infrastructure.

"If the towers are knocked out, mobile phone handsets become useless lumps of plastic in our hands," he said.

"The Serval Project has proven that there is no reason for that to be the case."

The Serval system allows mobile phones to communicate with each other to create a virtual network where no network cover exists.

In Australia it could allow people travelling in the outback to call each other for free.

It could also provide a limited mobile phone network for remote communities.

Dr Gardner-Stephen has just won a $400,000 fellowship from the Shuttleworth Foundation to take the technology of a proven concept to the product stage.

He expects to have free software available to the public within 12 months.

AAP

Full article:

Reply to
David Clayton
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This reminds me of the ad-hoc network capability that's built into every machine made for the "One Laptop Per Child" project

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assume that it's a form of "mesh" network, and I'm curious how many nodes it can handle, and if there is a relay or "help me" capability in the network that would connect a handset that was out of range to a tower via another (or two or more) handsets.

Bill

-- (Filter QRM for direct replies)

Reply to
Bill Horne

And more details on the technology in this article:

-- Regards, David.

David Clayton Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a measure of how many questions you have.

Reply to
David Clayton

In theory the software could discover any other nodes within Wi-Fi range and route packets as a relay (using the phone's power, it will be inconvenient if a critical relay handset runs out of juice).

It could probably also be set up in a "Broadcast" mode where each handset could act like a CB radio on a common channel - something that could be handy in a disaster situation.

If it is only a software app that can be implemented in most of the current handset platforms easily then it could well be of value when all the existing infrastructure "goes dark".

Reply to
David Clayton
+--------------- | The Serval system allows mobile phones to communicate with each other to | create a virtual network where no network cover exists. | | In Australia it could allow people travelling in the outback to call each | other for free. | | It could also provide a limited mobile phone network for remote | communities. +---------------

Oh, great. List all of the benefits, but ignore the problems -- the most obvious one being that this is an open invitation to Man-in-the-Middle eavesdropping attacks! Not to mention DoS attacks to block emergency communications during, say, a robbery/home-invasion/kidnapping.

-Rob

+--------------------------------------------------------------+ Rob Warnock 627 26th Avenue San Mateo, CA 94403
Reply to
Rob Warnock

I hardly think it is much of a worry in the Australian Outback.

Fred

Reply to
Fred Atkinson

Mesh networks are one of those ideas that seem much cooler in theory than they turn out to be in practice.

Basically, it turns the mobile phone network into Skype, with random traffic flowing through whatever nodes seem to be in generally the right direction. Everyone's phone is a tower, so the rate at which your battery runs down depends on how chatty strangers on opposite sides of you are.

R's, John

Reply to
John Levine

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