Slashdot Mirror
Swedish Company Trials Peer-to-Peer Cellphones
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."
This brings to mind some major privacy concerns too. Who besides me doesn't want my conversation getting routed through someone else's phone?
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
... but network effects mean that the number of connections in a heavily populated mesh grow exponentially. No, quadratically with the number of phones.Obviously the battery will be drained to zero in the blink of an eye, possibly dieing a violent, flaming death if enough energy was stored the moment you switched on the phone. Thankfully, your investigative question posed in TFS alerted their engineers to the problem so they can start working around this problem. Then again, maybe they were already aware of the problem and resorted to the wonderful method of self-regulating systems. The more cell phones burn up, the less dense the network will be. A beatiful design indeed.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
Probably a lot easier for another node to listen in. Probably a lot harder for the Government to listen in, until they write some tracking software.
Unfortunately for anyone building a P2P wireless mesh network, the way you solve the first problem (casual eavesdroppers) involves crypto of sufficient strength to make government eavesdropping impractical.
We're therefore presented with a technology that's in the interest of the consumer, but counter to the interests of the telcos and the government. No P2P wireless mesh networks will be permitted to proliferate.
I've been studying mesh networks, including Internet-based ones such as peercast networks, for quite some time. A few things to consider:
1. The strength of nodes you can connect to should be based on their strength versus others. Strength should be rated by uplink connection speed (is one node connected to the web versus other nodes connected only to other nodes?), power availability (is one node connected to a power supply verses a battery?), recent packet loss history and recent downtime history.
2. Node saturation: if a node with a lower network latency oversaturated? Connect to a less saturated, higher latency node.
3. Data needs: are you sending voice/video or data? Real-time connections should take precedence over data, of course.
The problem is way more complicated than it seems. For me, a perfect mesh/peercast network would allow data to navigate based on need as well as navigate to those who are the strongest nodes. Do current mesh networks consider these ideas? As far as I know, many of them don't.
I'd give it a year after this implemented and people will be routinely sharing music over this system.
Then there will be uproar from the music police, and they will insist on such draconian anti piracy measures that the technology will become all but unusable.
Or am I being pessimistic.
Concerning the author's comment on battery life, could one potentially recycle an old phone to act as a node in this network? Seems many of us get a new one every few years anyway.
If you can find a way to add privacy, then this could be a great way to return power to consumers and stick it to the man. Or at least have some leverage in convincing major companies to act more consume-friendly. I for one want to see lower prices and the end of the long-distance tax we have now.
and yet, you use the internet..
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
Put a GPS receiver in each phone, then send location statistics with each call. The company will rapidly discover the optimum positions to place central nodes, reducing the need for phone-based relaying except in fringe areas.
That and have lots of fun data to send to the NSA...
a couple decades ago there was a lot of DARPA research into autonomous routing and re-configuration in support of then-called 'packet radio' networks.
:-)
It doesn't seem like much more than VoIP over a ham packet radio network, only without having to be a geek to use it
" I would like to see a p2p wifi network, but not neccessarily on portable phones first, but instead on home computers"
You're late. It was called UUCP.
Need Mercedes parts ?
Gee, I dunno, most people's internet traffic is pretty fucking boring, but it doesn't stop the script kiddies from firing up their favorite wireless sniffer and eavesdropping. Why ever would I be concerned about someone eavesdropping on a phone call? Is that seriously the most sound "counterargument" you could come up with?
" I am so sick of everyone one being oh so concerned about identity theft"
No shit. I'd PAY somebody to be me.
Need Mercedes parts ?
Why would I care? Because my private matters, whether it be a credit card number, the status of an illness, or the fact that my house will be vacant while I'm on vacation, are none of anyone's business?
What about when I receive a call? How do I know if the conversation is going to turn from mundane to private?
We're talking about cell phones. You're out in public talking with 100 people around you and you're worried about privacy?!! If you want privacy wait until you get home.
Because phones are much closer to each other than telecom towers, and the energy to transmit goes up quadratically with the distance, I think there is no issue of the batteries dying in a blink. However, when you're on the road (driving), you may not be in touch with enough other phones, and the connection may suck.
Bert
One of the problems with wireless grid networks is the latency involved. Having towers makes for much lower latency. The idea of a call being routed 100km over a grid where the nodes have a max range of 1km is crazy. That's a couple of hundred possible points of failure. The quality just won't be acceptable.
But what about keeping the towers and just using a grid to connect the nodes that are a little out of range. Now that calls just have to traverse the grid to get to the nearest tower. Potential for error is greatly reduced along with latency.
Areas with an existing infrastructure would benefit even though there is already full coverage. When one has a poor connection (say, in a basement building) the phone could opt to use the grid to get the message out and to the tower. Overall quality of service would increase.
Areas without an infrastructure would benefit by requiring fewer towers. The more towers the better the quality of service - but for many areas just getting service is the main concern. In such areas only minimal infrastructure would be required. Additional infrastructure could be added in the future should they want to increase the quality of service.
In addition, localization (ie, 911) and content monitoring are only minimally effected by such a system. Believe it or not, this is actually a good thing for most people.
Just an idea,
Willy
You can sniff cell phone calls using little more than a HAM radio. This technology doesn't make it any easier or harder. In fact, I don't think this way of routing calls has any security/privacy implications which aren't already an issue with normal cellphone call routing, with the exception that this method makes it harder to eavesdrop on a specific phone call, since the calls don't go through any central point.
Cause they ain't exactly cells anymore are they?
Were that I say, pancakes?