Peer-to-Peer Cell Phones?

Mike writes "This Wired article mentions that research firm SRI International has come up with a nifty way to lessen the need for the ugly cell towers that you see popping up everywhere (I love the ones here in Atlanta that are oh-so-cleverly dressed up to look like pine trees). Their PacketHop software would create a sort of peer-to-peer network, utilizing the unused power in phones in the vicinity as miniature relays, with your voice/data hopping from one phone to the next until it reaches a relay tower and its final destination."

Comments

Re:And on behalf of everyone...

[Oculus Habent]

I imagine the power drain is a ratehr annoying point. Even with less power use, the increased activity of the phone will probably warrant another charge indicator: 2 hours talk time, 3 days standby, and 8 hours hop-mode.

Anyways, why not modify this so low-power, discrete antennas can do the job instead of other phones? Putting a small repeater every few light poles on the highway or along streets in areas of poor reception would vastly improve reception (if not coverage) and avoid the need for as many towers.

Cell repeaters could be come low-cost items that people could install on their houses in rural locations, in areas of poor reception, and even inside large buildings/warehouses.

Sure, the phones could still offer peer-hopping should it be needed, but think how much more useful stationary mini-towers would be.

If you don't believe me, think about getting great signal from the lake, and getting disconnected as the car on the highway gets farther away... leaving you stranded for minutes or hours without signal until the next car drives by. Hope you have SMS.