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P2P Cell Phones?
from the who-needs-a-centralized-cell-tower dept
Joe Schmoe writes "SRI's PacketHop software is embedded in the phone. The signal of the device then jumps from handset to handset – which must also have the software – until it reaches its final destination. Theoretically, it could work from New York to California if there were enough phones lined up in the right places. Realistically, this would be a solution for short-distance calls..." I've heard people talking about just such an idea for years, but haven't seen much in the way of implementation. It certainly does bring up a lot of issues that I think would have to be answered before this could be useful. I'm also not convinced that this is really any more stable. Suddenly you're relying on a larger number of less stable sites to carry your call. In crowded areas, it probably helps, but in other areas it could make things worse.
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WiFi Phones?
I don't see this as replacing the existing tower-handset infrastructure - but complimenting it, just like the Nextel. If I'm in a building, or for that matter, an elevator, that has lousy tower coverage, why shouldn't my handset switch immediately to the wifi access point and route my call through the ethernet LAN? It would almost be like combining a cell phone with a FRS radio in one handset, and also allow for IP based net activity. I also think that there may be a market for 802.11b walkie-talkies that piggyback on existing infrastructure. I know that some airports were trying to do something similar, but I haven't heard much about it in a while.
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