Mobile Technology

No mobile phone coverage? No worries, researchers put a tower in a phone

Australian researchers have developed software that creates a mesh network using Wi-Fi enabled mobile phones (Image: dbrulz via Flickr)
Australian researchers have developed software that creates a mesh network using Wi-Fi enabled mobile phones (Image: dbrulz via Flickr)

Unsurprisingly, the Australian outback doesn’t exactly boast the greatest mobile phone coverage in the world. But researchers down under have managed to make mobile phone calls in this remote landscape without the use of towers or satellites. Instead of relying on expensive infrastructure, the researchers created a mesh-based phone network between Wi-Fi enabled mobile phones that allowed them to communicate with each other.

The successful test was part of the Serval Project, led by Flinders University’s Dr Paul Gardner-Stephen, that aims to provide fast, cheap, robust and effective telecommunications in remote areas where conventional phone infrastructure isn’t cost effective or where the existing infrastructure has been damaged by natural disaster, war or terrorism.

The Serval Project – named after the problem-solving African wildcat – consists of two systems. The first is a temporary, self-organizing, self-powered mobile network for disaster areas, formed with small phone towers dropped in by air.

The second, and the one being tested in the outback, is a permanent system that requires no infrastructure and creates a mesh-based phone network between Wi-Fi enabled mobile phones, and eventually specifically designed mobile phones the researchers have called Batphones, that can operate on unlicensed frequencies.

Mesh networking

Mesh networking is a type of networking where each node (in this case each mobile phone) in the network can act as an independent router, regardless of whether it is connected to another network or not. It allows for continuous connections and reconfiguration around broken or blocked paths by “hopping” from node to node until the destination is reached.The researchers have integrated existing mesh network technology developed by Village Telco using unlicensed spectrum with software they developed called Distributed Numbering Architecture (DNA). This software allows people to use their existing phone numbers to enable people to be contacted on numbers they know – something the team says is especially important in disasters.

Off the beaten track

Accompanied by an ABC news team the researchers headed to the remote desert of South Australia to ensure they were far from any mobile phone towers. Since the system relies on the phones’ Wi-Fi capabilities, range is an obvious problem and the tests were only able to transmit calls over a distance of a few hundred meters. But they say the range could be expanded to cover a larger area by adding small transmitters or more devices that relay the calls on.

Usefulness

The need for a decent concentration of devices within an area to provide an extended range suggests the technology probably isn’t overly useful as it stands for sparsely populated areas. But its potential in the area of disaster relief could be significant. After the Haiti earthquake Ericsson deployed a “container based mini-GSM system,” which is essentially a portable mobile phone network, to enable mobile phone communications in the area. However, this took days and was expensive. The software being developed by the Flinders Universuty researchers could do the same thing but much more quickly and much more cheaply.

"With Haiti what was actually observed was that their mobile phone network and their landline phone network was essentially knocked out for the first 48 hours after the earthquake," Dr Gardner-Stephen told ABC News.

"What research has actually shown is that the vast majority of the response to a disaster is actually from the local people there, so if we can provide them with ease of communications as soon as possible after the earthquake, not 48 hours, not 72 hours but potentially minutes after a disaster, then we can help them to start rescuing people from rubble and generally rebuilding, maintaining law and order."

The researchers will now concentrate on increasing the range and improving the range of their system.

Via ABC News and crave

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7 comments
Cor Blimey
Great stuff, but an already solved technical solution to an economic problem. How can the telcos fleece us when everywhere\'s covered with wifi? Well, everywhere except the Great Aus Bight and other low-population areas.
Anumakonda Jagadeesh
Great Innovation.

Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore(AP),India
Nehemiah Spencer
This is incredible. For a long time, I have dreamed about having a phone-to-phone-to-phone network. Instead of cell towers and huge companies charging for our calls, we the people would be the network. This system would be free of any and all huge wireless bills. I had thought about modifying long-range walkie talkies but this is incredible. Everybody should support this!
theJaz
Gee, \'There\'s an App for that\'? -- A \'Walkie-Talkie\' on my iPhone. Who knew... I can see where this would be very helpful for those people dealing with a disaster, or just out hiking in the wilderness. Sweet.
Facebook User
Hmm.. My old Nokia has something on it called PTT.. I asked around as to what this was.. is Push To Talk.. seems like this is a similar thing already done years ago.. direct interfone connection? Would i be right ??
www.refinance-pro.com
Facebook User
Excuse my ignorance, but I don\'t get how this works. Where I live I do not get a cell signal or a wifi signal I\'m still going to need something to connect to but what? Another cell phone that is maybe 1000 yards from me?
Adam Carter
I\'ve thought about this idea before, but the real problem with this idea is that the radio could never be in some sort of standby mode, it would always be sending and receiving data, regardless of the phone being in use or not. This most likely would lead to abysmal battery life. If you used this kind of technology on a modern day phone I\'d expect you might get something like 5 hours before the battery is dead, at best.