Connecting Android Phones Without Carrier Networks

After disasters (or to minimize expensive data use generally, and take advantage of available Wi-Fi), bypassing the cell network is useful. But it's not something that handset makers bake into their phones. colinneagle writes with information on a project that tries to sidestep a dependence on the cellular carriers, if there is Wi-Fi near enough for at least some users: "The Smart Phone Ad-Hoc Networks (SPAN) project reconfigures the onboard Wi-Fi chip of a smartphone to act as a Wi-Fi router with other nearby similarly configured smartphones, creating an ad-hoc mesh network. These smartphones can then communicate with one another without an operational carrier network. SPAN intercepts all communications at the Global Handset Proxy so applications such as VoIP, Twitter, email etc., work normally."

Comments

Bypassing authorized carriers?

[fustakrakich]

I doubt the tyrants who control them will like that very much.

Re:Bypassing authorized carriers?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I suspect that they aren't wildly concerned:

For users on contract or fixed-price month-to-month, carriers often have an incentive to encourage them to use wifi(unless they think you'll upgrade to a more expensive data plan, or get whacked with overage fees, the less data you use the less you cost; but you still pay the same for the service). So long as they want to continue paying, the carriers would probably be delighted to have them drop off the grid and go mesh out to their heart's content.

Also, internet access in itself doesn't provide a phone number(though you can generally get a VOIP line more cheaply than a cell or landline), so only users who don't actually phone with their phones, or are willing to have phone access only when within range of the wifi or mesh, or who are willing to put up with having both a cell and a VOIP number, are likely to jump from their voice plan.

Plus, wireless meshes can, unless conditions are good, exhibit some pretty tepid latency and packet loss numbers. Well worth what you (don't) pay for bulk data transport; but cuts the utility for latency-sensitive applications.

This is hardly to say that meshes are useless(indeed, they are pretty neat, and certainly a good thing to have in place for resilience purposes and various other things); but they aren't a terribly effective direct competitor to contemporary cellular data standards, or to a one-hop wireless link to a hardline of some sort.

Re:Bypassing authorized carriers?

[mcrbids]

Stating the obvious in a sarcastic way while ignoring the truth: they were *paid in advance* to build out high speed data networks so that everyone would have access to truly broadband Internet and they have implemented only a small part of what was promised.

We have precious little to show for the generous application of public funds except for the raw number of square feet of the executives' gorgeous mansions.

Batman is a trademark

[tepples]

Nor will Warner Bros., given the name of one of the projects involved in this effort:

movement [of devices] and changes are a constant factor, making the burden of maintaining reliable routing information difficult enough to a inspire a new routing project, called the Better-Approach-To-Mobile-Adhoc-Network (BATMAN).

Warner owns the trademark for BATMAN, and I'm guessing this trademark is probably famous to qualify for dilution protection.

Re:Batman is a trademark

[ozmanjusri]

Nor will Warner Bros., given the name of one of the projects involved in this effort:

I think the Serval Project would have more right to be concerned, given that it is their work that's being hidden behind the advertising-ridden link from TFA.

It's also unsettling that work from a community project, intended to improve communications for people in need, is in the process of being "embraced" by an organisation like Mitre, funded by, and heavily tied into US Government and military.

Ad-hoc mesh networks do have the potential to be a game changer in a number of arenas. US government involvement this early is a bad sign for their future.

UMA what happened to it

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as i know only T-Mobile in the USA can use it. It is a nice feature when you are in a poor coverage area. Or traveling internationally.

Re:UMA what happened to it

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlicensed Mobile Access will be what he's talking about. Let's you use your mobile number whilst connected over WLAN for example. Basically a tunnel back from your mobile device to it's home network.

Why wait for an disaster?

[autonomouse]

Why wait for an disaster?

Thank goodness Twitter will be accessible!

[93 Escort Wagon]

Let's see... an unprotected ad-hoc network that lets any and all traffic through. What could possibly go wrong?

Re:Thank goodness Twitter will be accessible!

[fibonacci8]

Since it's designed for cases where everything else has already gone wrong, it's not likely to make things any worse.

The next step is WiFi calling

[MobyDisk]

While we are at it, can we make cell phones support WiFi for phone calls?

The phones already have the hardware to do this. People could make calls from places where cell reception sucks but they had Wifi internet. It would also reduce the burden on cell towers as people eliminate landlines and use their cell phones at home, where they probably already have WiFi routers. It also would eliminate the need for those stupid microcells: you could just use your regular wi-fi router for calls without needing to pay for their box.

Re:The next step is WiFi calling

[mspohr]

My Android Nexus One runs Skype which works over WiFi for phone calls... it's done this for years.
Is this what you had in mind?

Re:The next step is WiFi calling

[macemoneta]

While we are at it, can we make cell phones support WiFi for phone calls?

The phones already have the hardware to do this. People could make calls from places where cell reception sucks but they had Wifi internet. It would also reduce the burden on cell towers as people eliminate landlines and use their cell phones at home, where they probably already have WiFi routers. It also would eliminate the need for those stupid microcells: you could just use your regular wi-fi router for calls without needing to pay for their box.

You want Republic Wireless. We have it, and it works great.

Re:The next step is WiFi calling

[phoebus1553]

You don't truly have QOS unless you control both ends of the pipe and either everything in between or a very rigid conduit structure. You can get close if you have a QOS trust with your ISP but you only get what they allow you to get.

*** disclaimer: I'm not a network engineer, but I sit next to a few of them.

If you have a home router with QOS you have a priority structure among the devices in your house but once the packet leaves your CPE it is (barring a trust relationship with them) at the mercy of the network operators. If your cable co decides that VoIP is lower priority than streaming Pay-per-view then you're hosed. Beyond that, if you're fighting at the fiber head-end before you get to a piece of equipment that can even QOS tag/prioritize then you can be fighting a losing battle with your bittorrent neighbor for supremacy on the line.

Beyond that, lets assume that everyone is 'trusting' your QOS. You've assigned traffic flow X a priority of 3, now you have to decide how much bandwidth it gets either in % or in througput, whether or not that's a hard cap or it's allowed to exceed if the bandwidth is there, etc.. Your ISP can set their own rules too.

QOS is a fine concept, but one that everyone must be in agreement on.

Re:The next step is WiFi calling

[complete loony]

I'm working for the Serval Project, our main focus is offering phone calls, text messaging, file transfer and other communication services over whatever network is available. While a phone call requires a usable realtime path between the end points, we're trying to build other services that use a Delay Tolerant Networking protocol.

The services we're building will attempt to use any available network to discover other devices running our software and relay data. We've also been experimenting with using 915Mhz ISM band radios that could be attached to a small openWRT router running on battery power.

While we do attempt to get adhoc wifi working on android, the approach we're using obviously only works with root permission. And since google have removed adhoc support completely at the kernel level, our approach only really works on handsets running older android versions. In future, I think the best approach is going to be getting adhoc support into every custom android rom we can.

We've been talking to the SPAN project and would like to build a one-stop-shop app / web site with an automated process or manual instructions for how to get an adhoc wifi network working on any android device. That might entail the approaches we've been using on older hardware, or instructions on building a replacement kernel or a custom rom that is known to work.

Re:The next step is WiFi calling

[twostar]

Most T-Mobile android phones have wifi calling built into them. great for calling when outside the US and not paying roaming fee's.

Re:It's crap

[Nerdfest]

So people shouldn't be allowed to have administrative acces on their own computers? You're adapting nicely to the direction that computing is headed.

Re:It's crap

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

That only works on rooted phones

I can't imagine why a modification to the behavior of a device driver(or possibly the replacement of a device driver, depending on the features of the shipping driver) might require root access... Those lazy developers, they should have just built ad-hoc 802.11 mesh networking support in HTML5 or something.

Mobile Emergency Communications Project

[talmage]

I've organized a similar project, the Mobile Emergency Communications Project. It builds on NRL OLSR, NRL SMF, and NORM and comes with some rudimentary graphical applications for testing and for file sharing. The applications are written in C++ and QML using the Qt framework.

The project runs on Linux and on Nokia's N900 and N9 phones. I'm looking for help to port it to Symbian, Android, and iOS devices.

Missing the point

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Android can tether, but that's not the point of this project. Standard tethering is mostly a spoke-hub type of model, where one user acts as the access point and others use said access point. The SPAN project appears to be about using WiFi to set up a mesh network when other means of communication are unavailable, so that everyone in the mesh can communicate to peers (or, if at least one user has access to the Internet, to anyone anywhere). This would allow for a much larger area of coverage when traditional networks are down. TFA references the events following the Haiti earthquakes as a potential use case. There are many possible issues to consider such as security, nodes moving around or dropping out of the network, etc.; but this still seems to be a pretty interesting new use of technology. I'll certainly give it a try.