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Comment by King-Aaron | Hacker News Reader

I've read this three times now, and still can't work out the context. Am I right in understanding he's talking about GSM mobile/cellular networks?

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Yes, the project he talks about is OSMOCom, Open Source Mobile Communications. http://osmocom.org/ will give you a little more context. I'm assuming this would allow you to route data over these types of networks given the proper hardware in your own environment.

Thank you for that. This is quite interesting, I thought there were quite strict guidelines about who was allowed to broadcast on 2/3G frequencies? Or is this bandwidth not as controlled as others?

There are strict guidelines, but generally it is possible to obtain an experimental license for specific events/situations.

As "extrapickles" pointed out in another comment thread, the spectrum requirement for this is an even bigger hurdle than getting all of the expensive equipment together to pull it off. The tech requires an amount of frequency separation that spreads outside the bounds of the ISM spectrums, so you'd need licensing or would need to be running in a third-world country with no regulations (which is actually a viable use for the tech).

For the unaware, ISM = Industrial, Scientific and Medical. These are the shared unlicensed frequencies that the general public may use. Wifi falls inside of this range.

...or in a place where no one who cares can receive your unauthorised transmissions. If you're not interfering with anyone who has the "right of way" on those frequencies, then you might as well not exist to them.

Except by the time you find out you're getting fines.

the cartels in northern mexico have been known to run their own rouge cell networks

http://www.npr.org/2011/12/09/143442365/mexico-busts-drug-ca...

Ah, the ol' Red commie cell nets ;)

(Just in case this wasn't a typo and you're not a native speaker, rouge is red - in french-, rogue is probably the word you want :)

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