Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Peer-to-Peer Cellular

Posted by michael on from the RIAA-already-alerted dept.

Phos writes: "A cool article over at the O'Reilly Network outlines a possible solution to cellular network outages in the event of an emergency. A P2P SMS technique where individual handsets act as autonomous SMS relays."

2 of 145 comments (clear)

  1. It already exists by ch-chuck · · Score: 5, Informative

    This article examines the task of creating a wireless communication system that can survive a catastrophic failure, and still provide basic communication services to its users.

    It's called Amateur or 'ham' radio - every year they have an event called 'field day' which is an exercise in taking your gear out and operating on generators, etc. 2 Meter handy talkies can work thru a repeater or direct simplex (peer-to-peer) if the repeater is down.

    I'll never forget listening to a ham during hurricane floyd, w/o power, operating on emergency backup power, 80 meter band, crouched in his garage on the NCarolina cost reporting the fierce winds in the night.

    --
    try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
  2. Disadvantages by sting3r · · Score: 5, Insightful
    It's sad to see that the author didn't touch on any of the possible downsides to his approach:

    • It's expensive. Redesigning SMS, asking the FCC for more spectrum, and fine-tuning the new protocol isn't cheap. And the wireless providers (many of whom have never run in the black) don't have much of an incentive to support anything PTP. Especially because catastrophic network failures are very rare.
    • Cheating. Most providers charge for SMS. How do they know that people won't try to beat the system and get SMS services for free?
    • Security. Unless somebody develops public key infrastructure for mobile phones, messages will be vulnerable to interception and malicious alteration. And that's probably the last thing emergency workers need to deal with.
    • Battery life. Ordinarily, PCS phones are only transmitting and receiving every 2-5 seconds, and they are communicating with a relatively powerful base station. This sort of thing would kill battery life. Unless all of the phone makers start using fuel cells, this is a grave concern.

    -sting3r