This idea might make YOU a BILLIONAIRE
 

or maybe not but fuck it, I want to throw it out there. I'd just be happy to see it executed well.

I'm sure everyone here's familiar with P2P on the Net. Why not make a P2P version for PHONES? Meaning, each phone is a transmitter and receiver. If there's enough of these phones to constitute a network, this would create a FREE P2P phone network.

Of course, every interesting idea has DRAWBACKS, that's why I'm posting this stuff here.

Drawback #1: SECURITY. Each packet going through the network must be secure.

Drawback #2: Radio frequency allocation. This is a regulatory/political issue. Or maybe not, it could be local companies buying up the frequency in exchange for something else (usually this takes the form of charges but that would defeat the notion of a FREE p2p system.... so maybe in the form of advertising????)

Drawback #3: Monetization. Advertising is what comes to mind. Premium services also come to mind.

Drawback #4: Network to network relay. I can see this (possibly) working in a small city, but how about city to city or region to region?


If this sounds stupid or lame--Don't hate...... PARTICIPATE in the brainstorm :)

A few companies have tried building out mesh networks for wireless internet access that was like this. The main problem is bandwidth limitations, when you figure the number of nodes a long distance phone call would have to go through it becomes quite difficult to make it feasible.

Also if we're talking mobiles, then you have to consider battery life. When a phone is acting like a repeater it would be the same as making a call giving you a much lower 'standby' time.

One great thing about a properly designed network such as this is that it would be completely self healing and would route around any local failures.

I think it's a great idea, and as soon as we get much needed advancements in battery technology it will unleash a torrent (heh) of breakthroughs such as this.

I could see a company doing this with landlines right now, just piggyback it on current wireless internet projects through VOIP. Once you've reached a saturation point with that, expanding to mobiles will be a breeze.

There's quite a few companies working on this. As has been previously said the network isn't there yet... and people's data usage habits are about 3 or 4 years off from becoming an always on type of thing that would be necessary.

But that day is coming and when it does file theft will go into overdrive!

that;s a billion dollar idea regarding cost ;-)

Good points. It would be interesting to see those key obstacles surmounted to see this thing really take off.

hm, p2p on my PC basically free for me, swapping a few hundred large files on my cellphone will cost me quite a bit, no??


ok, I admit - I just skimmed the post ;)

I used to work as a cellphone tech and I'm pretty sure today's phones couldn't handle that; it would take a new design as each phone would be basically functioning as a cell tower.

It doesn't seem impossible, though as AgentCash noted it would take a lot of battery power; perhaps the phones could be set to function as repeaters only when plugged into an external power source such as a car or wall outlet.

This wouldn't solve the problem of intercity and international calls, however... still need some satellite or ground lines for that I think.

Nice prediction ( http://slashdot.org/articles/07/09/11/1546258.shtml )
Damn another missed chance to be a billionaire... :pimp

Now, that's awesome! I hope that pans out. Hopefully someone comes up with a HARDWARE based as opposed to NETWORK based solution. This will result in a truly OPEN system. I highly doubt it (due to city to city calling requirements and bottlenecks in a p2p network for city to city transmission), but I can dream, can't I?

They basically already have that, its called walkie talkie's. Cellphones have been doing it a while now.

walkie talkie all the way indeed ( 3 miles radius right? )

3 miles on a GI Joe action set walkie talkie maybe, but the cell phone walkie's work across the country. They are obnoxious, but effective.

but a p2p walkie talkie?

What would be the real difference between the two? Besides one is typing and the other is talking? Maybe some kind of text/walkie hybrid system, not sure if it would be worth it though.

Well the beauty about P2P is it throws the cost of the network from a centralized site to the network of hardware itself.

There's a lot of drawbacks though. For one thing, how can one handset handle the transmission of all the info being routed through it specially if its the only node in a particular area. The quality will probably suck.

Like I said, phone companies and other centralized players will not like this. The hardware manufacturers would love it though. So would the consumer.

It might mean the end of GSM. Very interesting. I don't think the local telcos would like that :1orglaugh

Too late, it was just launched and its called Ooma - ooma dot com. Ashton Kutcher is involved believe it or not. I actually really hope it lasts, I'll ditch vonage/ATT the day this thing looks like its going to be around for any significant amount of time.

R

My celumatic 6000 already has that feature out of the box...

http://www.rewindmuseum.com/images3/brick.gif

This is the nano version!

great idea

An interesting idea.

sorry no time for that idea

If phones were open source then someone probably would have hacked together something using bluetooth by now. :) Not that it has sufficient range to do anything useful, but it would be geeky fun to try creating a mesh network using purely local communications only