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Sending Data In Bursts of SMS Messages

Posted by timothy on from the out-of-band-and-back-again dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Canadian carrier Rogers has been experiencing some extreme loads of late, as researchers at the University of Waterloo investigate the potential for sending data spread across bursts of hundreds of text messages. They sent around 80,000 messages in the course of a project testing a new protocol able to cram 32KB into 250 messages sent from a BlackBerry, reaching a rate of 20 bytes per second. The group thinks its protocol could be useful in rural areas of the developing world where text messaging is the only affordable, reliable link."

12 of 181 comments (clear)

  1. Cram it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Don't give AT&T any ideas, you jackasses!

  2. Oops by ekgringo · · Score: 5, Funny

    Make sure you get the "unlimited" text messaging plan before trying this...

  3. My 300 baud modem shivered... by Overzeetop · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...and got to feel the thrill of competition again.

    --
    Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
    1. Re:My 300 baud modem shivered... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      So the clear answer is voice-over-ip-over-sms

  4. Big money, no wammies by Itninja · · Score: 4, Funny

    In a completely unrelated story, the University of Waterloo has an unexpected ~$16,000 shortfall this quarter.

    --
    I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
  5. Re:Why bother? by EricJ2190 · · Score: 4, Funny

    If it's anything else, drive to Starbucks for free wifi.

    Because Starbucks is so commonplace in the "rural areas of the developing world."

  6. This is Tailor-Made for... by srmalloy · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... next year's April 1 RFC -- "IP over SMS Carrier".

  7. Neato! by zmollusc · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is good news (everyone), by the time you have torrented your bluray rip, it will be out of copyright.
    Or not.

    --
    They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
  8. Yak Protocol by Ukab+the+Great · · Score: 5, Funny

    Maximum carrying load of a Yak: 70kg
    Weight of a 32GB micro sd card. 0.5g
    Having your own 3rd world petabit network: priceless.

    1. Re:Yak Protocol by BuckaBooBob · · Score: 2, Funny

      This like WiFi degrades significantly with distance..

      Doing some rough math.. A Yak that can go 5km/hour when fully loaded using your numbers can Transter about 25 Peta-bytes per second over 1 Meter... at 25 Meters your down to 1 Peta-byte/s.. This is Payload Only.. It does not include packing or transferring information on and off the SD's. The Latency would be extremely high... I am gussing that the Protocols that have been developed for data transmissions to the Moon might still not have enough forgiveness to hand the latency of this.

      --
      Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
  9. What do you mean? by colinnwn · · Score: 3, Funny

    I have to pay $10 when I text "HAITI" to 90999! I thought Microsoft was paying.

  10. Re:so now will they bill $1 per txt each way? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    so now will they bill $1 per txt each way?

    Good. Maybe teenagers will start paying attention in school.

    Now get off my lawn!