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LTE Upgrade Will Let Phones Connect To Nearby Devices Without Towers
An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from MIT's Technology Review: A new feature being added to the LTE protocol that smartphones use to communicate with cellular towers will make it possible to bypass those towers altogether. Phones will be able to "talk" directly to other mobile devices and to beacons located in shops and other businesses. Known as LTE Direct, the wireless technology has a range of up to 500 meters, far more than either Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. It is included in update to the LTE standard slated for approval this year, and devices capable of LTE Direct could appear as soon as late 2015. ... Researchers are, for example, testing LTE Direct as a way to allow smartphones to automatically discover nearby people, businesses, and other information.
in case of massive power outage that knocks out towers
Wonder what the ping times between LA to NY would be like on a LTE peer to peer network... lets see... what's 2500 miles / 500 meters?
LTE direct sounds like an advertiser's wet dream.
What are the actual benefits to consumers?
What's in this for the NSA, FBI and other LEO?
Will the phone owner be able to turn it off?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Once there was private peer-to-peer radio. It was called "Ham Radio". But the companies couldn't charge for it, so they made the radios always work through their base stations and called it "Cellular Radio". And of course they removed the peer-to-peer function.
But wait, now it's back! (in a way that can be monetised of course).
peer to peer communication during extended blackouts? File transfer? gaming? video chat?
So now we have to turn off our phones too if we don't want companies to follow us in their stores? We solved this for WiFi (random MAC addresses), I do hope they will solve it for LTE before it's implemented.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
You're still using their carrier wave. They can still turn off the signal at anytime. But you can still play Tetris...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
So if I get this right you can have two phones communicate directly over LTE. In a couple of years time we will have these old LTE Direct capable phones just lying around doing nothing. To me that is the most awesome backbone of a decentralised wireless internet ever! Way way higher speeds then wifi, longer distance and built with hardware we would have otherwise discarded!
So this is in effect, a way of bypassing the carriers? If not, then would we need to have Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-mobile branded LTE-Direct spots?
I sure see this as a way for warehouse-like stores like Ikea and Costco to offer cell services and have a captive portal for web users (and potentially voice users as well - ugh).
But what is preventing a rogue actor from setting up their own LTE direct hotspots and MITM-ing a large group's entire communications? Especially if said actor were doing so with tacit approval from the carriers?
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
As if that matters! Have you seen a lawn full of teenagers? They'll talk about one thing while texting the same person about another. They also keep trampling my azaleas...
It's a way to charge people for using CB radio and walkie talkies.
How are you paying for it?
Also I see this as a way of joining my home network with a friends a couple of houses away without buying any new equipment.....
Judging by how VoLTE got implemented you'll have to wait for iPhone 8 or maybe 9...
How do you propose it gets around blackouts? If it did you would have the entire epicenter relying on fringe cell phones for service. It's like having an entire town piggy backing on a handful connections. Those who are in range will have their batteries toasted before you could say YouTube.
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
Peers with spectrum licences only. Move along ...
From TFA:
> LTE Direct uses licensed spectrum, allowing mobile operators to employ it as a way to offer a range of differentiated applications
> and services to users.
Time flies like an arrow -- Fruit flies like a banana
500 meters in a terremote, or other disaster, could be a long perilous walk, and LTE Direct could save lives.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Never. They always get off my lawn.
Don't we already have a tech called bluetooth for that?
Bluetooth doesn't handle phone-calls or SMS. That and that it's generally just a goddam trainwreck - I admit that, on occasion, it will actually work.
The nearest thing I know of is the Serval project.
On my old 1995 Nokia, there was a Push To Talk function that used a little known option of the GSM protocol. But of course the provider disabled that function in the phone it 'offered' with the contract, since you didn't need to pay them if you used it. Is that function somewhat similar ?
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Right now, this is happening in Hong Kong:
In Hong Kong, pro-democracy demonstrators are looking for new ways to communicate.
News about the protests in Hong Kong have been suppressed in mainland China, where the picture sharing site Instagram has been blocked. Messages posted to Sina Weibo, a Chinese microblogging site similar to Twitter, are being blocked in far greater numbers than normal. And on Sunday, rumours reportedly circulated that the authorities in Hong Kong might shut down the city's cellular networks.
In response, a different type of social network has come to the fore. The Firechat app allows smartphone users to talk to one another "off-the-grid", in the absence of a mobile signal or access to the internet. By making use of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, messages are spread in a daisy chain fashion, jumping from one user to the next. The system is particularly effective when large numbers of people are congregated together - like at a music festival, or a political protest.
Micha Benoliel, CEO of Open Garden, the firm that makes the app, tells BBC Trending there has been a huge surge in downloads from Hong Kong, as more than 100,000 new accounts have been created in less than 24 hours. Usage spiked during protests in Taiwan and Iran earlier this year, but never before on this scale, says Benoliel.
Inside the app discussions are arranged either according to theme, or how close you are to other users. At one point on Sunday 33,000 people in Hong Kong were using the app at the same time.
Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-...
Cryonics - Keep cool and carry on.
And then again, it may explain why my phone connections suck for the last couple days after my update.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Yes, because p2p comm during extended blackouts is trivially easy to maintain in the face of depleting battery power (Also, extended blackouts are oh-so-common in modern life). File transfers? Don't we already have a tech called bluetooth for that?
Fucking luddites on a tech site.
Yes, we have wifi, and bluetooth, and whatever, but LTE could be a technology to rule them all. Imagine having one protocol that could scale from pico home sites to nationwide networks. Having your phone connected to a home LTE hotspot that sits on your free fast wired internet connection, that then seemlessly hands over when you leave the house to standard mobile comms, or does P2P when you're physically near someone and need a photo or video from their device. We could do away with a whole bunch of different technologies potentially and replace them with one overarching wireless protocol that is better than them all.
Now make Me a liar....
But this will definetely blow to our face in the matter of privacy and such.
I know, I know, what hasn't?
But these are precisely the kinda tech, that I'd love to see, without "unforeseen" ShellShock bugs.
So, make it slow, what I mean by that, is take those extra 2 weeks for develops and tech guys, and make it safe for God's sake.
After the marketing idiots, I mean people, have their way, the game is over.
There where two words on this post, pick yer own.
Not to mention a replacement for WLAN. I would expect that eFDD17 (700 MHz) band would be far better at going through my brick walls into the basement than my current 5GHz wlan router.
Just another 3GPP vendor tryhard attempt at preventing becoming a big dumb pipe by offering 'differentiated services.' This is something that will be used by no-one voluntarily and will fall into the same bucket as previous failures such as UMA. Give us a break from the frilly nonsense and get back to work on LTE-A with gigabit speeds already.
Providing service in network blackspots comes to mind straight away (for a price of course)
null
Actually it sounds like a great place for a black hat to play!
Now celebrating 25 years of pushing location-based services nobody wants!
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
This could allow you to use your phone while inside a blind spot in the cell network. Instead of deploying a microcell tower to cover half a dozen houses in some valley they could just use this.
Which is exactly what I thought, the second I read it. A perfect way to insert yourself in the middle of other people's privileged communications. There is no way in fuck this can't be exploited. Fake certs, sslsniff and I guarantee you we're going to find a whole new realm of exploits, with this.
:-P
I wonder what it says about people like you and me that everyone else posting sees a wonderful opportunity for better networks and we see an obvious security risk?
That's what I need; radiation at full blast an inch from my crotch and my battery life dropping for no reason while someone uses my phone as a relay.
Don't we already have a tech called bluetooth for that?
Bluetooth doesn't handle phone-calls or SMS. That and that it's generally just a goddam trainwreck - I admit that, on occasion, it will actually work.
The nearest thing I know of is the Serval project.
The OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project had this capability from the start. Their normal setup is a flock of laptops with only wireless comm hardware, all talking to and relaying messages for their neighbors, plus a wired machine somewhere in the area that provides access to the outside world.
Actually, this was the intended "normal" situation back in the ARPAnet era. It didn't make sense to the military funders to rely on a single relay machine that would be an easy target. But suppliers of the commercial Internet never liked the idea, because they've always wanted to charge customers for every device with access. A flock of devices using a single member's Internet access was explicitly banned at first because of this. As they slowly realized that they couldn't continue to hold the Internet back that way, they switched to the approach of software that hands packets to a single router/gateway box, and not directly to any neighbor.
We still see this very clearly with email, which on most customers' gadgets requires sending a message to an email "server" (typically on an ISP's machine), rather than directly to the target machine. If members of your family want to send messages to each other's gadgets, do the messages go directly to their machine? Or do they go to an address on some company's machine, which tells the recipient that they have a message? This isn't accidental; it's done that way so that the company has access to all your messages, and you have to continue to pay them or lose the ability to send messages to people within your own household.
This isn't necessarily silly. I live in a house with 3 floors (plus a basement ;-). Such verticaly houses are fairly common here in New England. My wife's "home office" is in the (half-size) top floor, a finished attic actually, and if I'm working a couple of floors lower, messages like "Lunch?" or "Mail's here" are much faster by email or IM than by running up and down stairs. It's often annoying when local IP packet storms (especially at lunch/dinner time) interfere with delivery of such messages. This sort of "insignificant" traffic would work better if the original machine-to-machine design were implemented. But the commercial ISP market would lose if they couldn't charge for (and read) such traffic, so we can expect them to fight it.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Yes, because p2p comm during extended blackouts is trivially easy to maintain in the face of depleting battery power (Also, extended blackouts are oh-so-common in modern life). File transfers? Don't we already have a tech called bluetooth for that?
Fucking luddites on a tech site.
Yes, we have wifi, and bluetooth, and whatever, but LTE could be a technology to rule them all. Imagine having one protocol that could scale from pico home sites to nationwide networks. Having your phone connected to a home LTE hotspot that sits on your free fast wired internet connection, that then seemlessly hands over when you leave the house to standard mobile comms, or does P2P when you're physically near someone and need a photo or video from their device. We could do away with a whole bunch of different technologies potentially and replace them with one overarching wireless protocol that is better than them all.
When there is a real disaster and a provider (AT&T, Verizon, etc) wants to restore service, they typically bring a tractor trailer full of hardware, a generator, plus a huge mast antenna, all just to serve as a temporary cell site. It's a bit of a stretch to think that a new trick in the LTE protocol will make all of that magically happen between handsets without being a huge drain on each handset (making them die even faster in an area where they probably cant be easily charged). This will be more of a gimmick to let the handset get data from nearby devices, like a dinner menu or a coupon for $1 off dog food (in exchange for some juicy personal data, of course).
How do you propose it gets around blackouts? If it did you would have the entire epicenter relying on fringe cell phones for service. It's like having an entire town piggy backing on a handful connections. Those who are in range will have their batteries toasted before you could say YouTube.
Well, one thing that might help is a "social responsibility" campaign. Publicise the fact that this is an inherent problem, and the solution is for as many people as possible should be prepared with extra batteries; portable battery packs, etc. Explain to people that the system will only work if enough people have the extra power in their pockets to keep the messaging system alive. And that, in an emergency situation, they might avoid using sites like youtube. ;-)
Granted, some people will enjoy leeching off the rest of us. But it's possible that, by calmly explaining the situation to people, most of us will do what it takes to keep the system up and running.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
And probably still counting against one's data plan, even though it bypasses the cell-towers.
Kind of like now, how they want to deduct minutes from my cell plan when I'm using my home 802.11n wireless to make phone calls through my cell handset.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Transmitting uses much more power than receiving. This peer-to-peer method may play havoc with battery life in a weak cell reception area. I hope they are considering that ramification in the design and metering of the service. How much traffic should one phone carry and how does it benefit the phone holder? Perhaps a credit scheme for carrying traffic?
Invenio via vel creo
Existing cell technology does not support proper authentication. Your mobile device is authenticated, but cell towers are assumed to be trusted and you have no control over what you connect to. This allows all kinds of Man in the Middle attacks, where one could pretend to be a cell tower and capture traffic.
Hypothetical example - you are standing next to a cartoon robber with a big black box called "FAKE CELL TOWER". The only way you could prevent your smartphone from getting connected to this device is to turn data off. Once you connect, attackers can push fake app updates, inject exploits into your browsing, inspect your unencrypted traffic, try to get you accept compromised certificates, redirect your traffic and so on.
And this is why I am not excited about LTE direct.
Honestly, I'm kind of surprised the powers that be let this one through.
military is constantly struggling to maintain cell networks and comms in war zones. this is a good tech for soldiers in the field that need to share intel.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
One might be able to create an ad-hoc mesh network to extend range...
Greed is the root of all evil.
You would be better off buying $150 worth of equipment than tying up two cell phones with monthly fees to connect two separate networks.
"Disabled on US Carriers until they find a way to make data sent via LTE Direct count against your data cap."
Wouldn't surprise me, anyway.
That would be an interesting application, but I doubt the carriers are going to hand over sufficient control to implement that.
TFS and TFA say 'up to' 500 meters.
You always need to consider the extremes. What happens when there are thousands of devices in range?
If you're that close, the existing bluetooth and WiFi should be able to manage nicely.
that sits on your free fast wired internet connection
WTF, Are you on crack or something?
since when is anyone's 'Wired' internet "Fast" let alone "Free"?
Well, I should have said 'unmetered'. Wired will always have the potential to be faster than wireless, and in any civilised country with a functioning telecoms market it will be.
Same old trick by the telcos... They wont upgrade/add towers
You are aware of physics aren't you? You can't just keep adding cell towers, there's a limit to how closely you can put them together. The wireless bandwidth will always be restricted nomatter how much money you throw at it.
Maybe I'm reading this wrong but I read this as no different to wifi or bluetooth. you would have two devices talking over LTE - towers (and hence registatration on a network and monthly fees) not required.
It's at least free for "Up to 5 Mbps download & 1 Mbps upload speed" in Google Fiber areas. They list $300 construction fee, but I thought that was actually being waived.
The increased connectivity during a disaster is a minor side-effect. You'll be able to use your phone in large buildings with poor connectivity, which is the major reason people will want this.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Presumably given enough coverage of 500m phones, no towers would be necessary at all with the right software... That is so long as you can communicate with the nearest 500m LTE phone, it could potentially pass it on to the rest of the network... Of course there would be issues with the organization of such a network in a distributed fashion and performance issues when you have someone important being the only link between many users and a single phone trying to handle more transmission than it can handle.
It would be an interesting thing to try, particularly in a dense city. It could also work forming small networks anywhere really, given the phones, people, and proximity..