I’m the speaker in this talk; happy to answer any questions anyone might have!
The main project that I discuss (and demo) in the talk is https://jmp.chat/ . Since the talk I’ve also made an outline of the overall plan (a more concise and complete version of the slides): https://wiki.soprani.ca/ThePlan . Comments and/or suggestions on that are also welcome.
I find it’s a bit strange you started at the end you did….
To me the main problem to freeing the cell phone is the baseband… ie. This step…
Once we have the above done, there is still the problem of how to communicate with people when outside of wifi coverage, which is something that a cell carrier normally provides.
So I have been doing a fair bit of digesting the standards in this area and poking at cellular modems and the like.
And I would say most of the complexity and code in the whole cellular stack is around revenue collection. ie. The carriers will fight you tooth and nail to preserve their revenue stream. ie. The problem isn’t the simcard.
ie. They will never let you on their infrastructure if they can’t extract the full amount of revenue.
I think you’re right in that it should be IP first, voice second… (BTW, it looks like LTE is doing that) but I sure range beyond wifi is the main problem.
It sounds like we mostly agree on the solution here (but correct me if I’m wrong). In particular, the long-term goal is to not need a cellular baseband at all, or any connection to the cellular carriers.
The reason I mention some cellular-dependent options in the talk is because we need some interim solutions (ie. ways for people unwilling to switch devices to use non-cellular more easily). But in the long run we can hopefully migrate people to devices that don’t need such workarounds, especially when we have better and longer-range community-run radio networks.
especially when we have better and longer-range community-run radio networks.
I guess that’s the bit I’m interested in….. Partly at a professional level since I work with LMR radio. (Hey, I get my pay check from number of handsets and base stations we make… not per call made.)
It would be great if we could chat more about this - we’re always interested to hear from people who work on radio. Feel free to join our XMPP group chat at discuss@conference.soprani.ca (you can join via the web if you like) or send me an email using my contact form.
I’m the speaker in this talk; happy to answer any questions anyone might have!
The main project that I discuss (and demo) in the talk is https://jmp.chat/ . Since the talk I’ve also made an outline of the overall plan (a more concise and complete version of the slides): https://wiki.soprani.ca/ThePlan . Comments and/or suggestions on that are also welcome.
I find it’s a bit strange you started at the end you did….
To me the main problem to freeing the cell phone is the baseband… ie. This step…
So I have been doing a fair bit of digesting the standards in this area and poking at cellular modems and the like.
And I would say most of the complexity and code in the whole cellular stack is around revenue collection. ie. The carriers will fight you tooth and nail to preserve their revenue stream. ie. The problem isn’t the simcard.
ie. They will never let you on their infrastructure if they can’t extract the full amount of revenue.
One alternative in this space are these guys…. https://villagetelco.org/mesh-potato/
Even then, wifi itself is a vast bundle of incredibly complex proprietary magic..
The only guys even starting to step outside of that are https://gnuradio.org/ and on top of them is http://openbts.org/
I think you’re right in that it should be IP first, voice second… (BTW, it looks like LTE is doing that) but I sure range beyond wifi is the main problem.
It sounds like we mostly agree on the solution here (but correct me if I’m wrong). In particular, the long-term goal is to not need a cellular baseband at all, or any connection to the cellular carriers.
The reason I mention some cellular-dependent options in the talk is because we need some interim solutions (ie. ways for people unwilling to switch devices to use non-cellular more easily). But in the long run we can hopefully migrate people to devices that don’t need such workarounds, especially when we have better and longer-range community-run radio networks.
I guess that’s the bit I’m interested in….. Partly at a professional level since I work with LMR radio. (Hey, I get my pay check from number of handsets and base stations we make… not per call made.)
It would be great if we could chat more about this - we’re always interested to hear from people who work on radio. Feel free to join our XMPP group chat at discuss@conference.soprani.ca (you can join via the web if you like) or send me an email using my contact form.
Slides link: https://ossguy.com/talks/20170326_libreplanet/
Project site: https://soprani.ca