Swedish Company Trials Peer-to-Peer Cellphones

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday September 11, 2007 @05:01AM from the we-can-hear-everybody-now dept.

Dr_Barnowl writes "A company named TerraNet is going through a trial period for a p2p based mobile telephony system. Phones are used to route calls onto other phones, constructing mesh networks of 'up to 20km'. The BBC reports on the natural tendency of the big telecoms providers to want to squash this. I can see other problems though. The advantages in an environment with sparse cell coverage are obvious, but network effects mean that the number of connections in a heavily populated mesh grow exponentially. What happens to your battery life when your phone becomes a node? And while the company is optimistic that they have a viable technology model from IP licensing, the demand for devices supporting this is going to be proportional to the number of devices that it can connect you to."

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Re:Privacy Concerns Anyone? by Anonymous Coward · 2007-09-11 05:35 · Score: -1, Flamebait

Cell phones. The discussion is about cell phones. It's not about IRC, not about Skype, not about AIM (all of which, the traffic goes through a central server, I might add), it's about cell phones, and relaying calls -not- through a central location, but through other end users.
Now that your head has been forcibly removed from your ass, please try to contribute something relevant to the discussion.
%spon6e by Anonymous Coward · 2007-09-11 05:47 · Score: -1, Flamebait

I b0rnt out. I slings are limited,
Re:Privacy Concerns Anyone? by Anonymous Coward · 2007-09-11 06:47 · Score: -1, Flamebait

You started with a reasonable point, so why this remark? Just because the internet allows you to say things you would never say face to face, doesn't mean it's right to do so.
People shouldn't waste other people's time with their ignorance, dickfart.