Connecting Android Phones Without Carrier Networks 102
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."
Mobile Emergency Communications Project (Score:4, Interesting)
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 (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, Android can tether, but that's not the point of this project. Standard tethering is mostly a spoke-hub [wikipedia.org] 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 [wikipedia.org] 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.