A Wireless Communications System That Works When Cell Phones, Internet Are Down | Hacker News Reader

A Wireless Communications System That Works When Cell Phones, Internet Are Down

fastcompany.com

27 pointsjamesbritt18 comments

>There's just one catch: Users have to be within range of each other. Outdoors, this could mean up to a kilometer. Indoors, users may have to be as close as a few hundred yards.

I got my first Amateur Radio (HAM) license when I was 16, along with my (late) father who helped me study and pass the incredibly challenging test, which im proud to say I got through. The year was ~1996. Few people had cell phones, and those that did were just about as happy with the service as we are today with AT&T.

I remember I was on a scouting hike in the Los Angeles mountains when we saw a wildfire break out up ahead. One of my leaders told us "hey, I just got this new cell phone, let me call it in." After a few minutes of looking for a signal, and finally getting one but it not going through, I tuned my 2 Meter handheld to the Catalina Isle. (off the coast of California) repeater and called for a CQ emergency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CQ_(call) and within 10 seconds got someone who returned my call, took the details, and we were done. Within 20 minutes we saw a helicopter fly overhead and started to hear sirens.

We don't have to complicate our lives as we hack up new technology to convenience others or create new standards with limits like this. With 5w of power, my 90's handheld rig connected 150miles away over the Pacific and got the job done. Not only is being a HAM radio operator a fun hobby, it's free, and it works.

Yeah, direct radio communication beats an ad-hoc WiFi network anyday but a solution that you have got beats one that you don't have. And WiFi-enabled stuff (laptops, smartphones and who knows what else) is much more ubiquitous than amateur radio gear. The solution in the article is not meant to replace radio but to work when you don't have one.

Yeah, the title text should probably read "A new wireless communication system . . . "

When I saw it my first though was "Someone reinvented the walkie talkie?"

It sounds neat, but makes a lot of assumptions...

1) Power. You have to have it.

2) Other people. Someone has to be in range of yourself to communicate with others. And a chain of people is needed to communicate long distances. And they need power.

3) Equipment. You don't just need a computer. You need a computer with WiFi. And decent range. Despite what they say about indoor range, my wireless in my apartment barely goes from 1 end of my 1-bedroom apartment to the other. It's sad.

4) Security. How is this protected against assholes? Seems to me that man-in-the-middle attacks are really easy with this. 1 random person could doom an entire area.

I've been involved in providing comms during disaster recovery and this would be extremely useful during first-response / search&rescue.

1. You generally have access to power by generators.

2. You have an entire community and international USAR (urban search and rescue) teams fly in within a matter of hours.

3. Android/iPhone/Netbooks. There is not really a shortage of these and they are easily flown in with USAR. Mobile companies have been great at donating during these times.

4. There really are bigger problems to worry about in these situations. And believe me, if someone is caught doing 'asshole' activities during a disaster, the community never lets them forget it.

You have a generator every few hundred yards, all the way to where you need to communicate with, and you don't simply have a cable running that distance as well?

I'm not trying to knock them. I'm glad they're trying to solve a real problem. I'm just not convinced that it's as bright and shiny as it first appears. There's a lot of other real-world problems that are going to negate the majority of its usefulness.

In a disaster area cellular technology is often spotty due to massive power outages and people clogging the networks. Running ethernet cable to a series of hotspots would be great also, or using RF to propagate signals, but these things take time. If USAR teams have mesh networks built right into their phones I feel this would be extremely useful, especially in push-to-talk situations, receiving emergency notifications (fire/quake/volcano alerts, USAR needs to get out ASAP), comms back to hq etc. For me, this is an exciting and important area that can save lives and property.

People have car batteries. Just make sure they have a way to hook up to them.

In the "first" and "second" world, they are in their cars. In the "third" world, they are charged somewhere and transported to the home (unless they are wealthy enough to have a generator).

I'm in the U.S., and with this year's crazy weather, I've observed more and more people who have "thrown their hands up" and purchased a small, gasoline powered Honda or similar generator. When the power goes out, the neighborhood starts humming with the sound of generators.

(I hear it somewhat in despair; it makes me worry we are truly heading in the "everybody for themselves" direction, as opposed to actually maintaining our infrastructure. Similar to how people describe the SUV trend in terms of "a way to deal with all the potholes and the streets that don't get plowed after snowstorms, anymore".)

Me too. I'd disagree with #2 and #4. It takes a lot more than "hours" for resources outside of the affected area to arrive. I've seen plenty of asshole activities during a disaster - including someone stealing a water trailer at gunpoint from a USAR staging area.

The technology generally isn't the issue - it's funding and having trained people available to deploy the gear. Florida's Division of Emergency Management (where FEMA's Craig Fugate came from) has a decent handle on this: http://www.floridadisaster.org/CIEM/2006/Slides/09%20-%20Int...

>someone stealing a water trailer at gunpoint

I can't imagine how frustrating that would be. You do however now remind me of generators going missing at night and purposeful damage of barricades.

Amateur Radio? http://www.arrl.org

sure, but as they say about cameras, "the cameraphone on you is often worth more than the 5mk2 dslr you have at home".

or something along those lines.

73 for the link, KE6QFN

A network without ISPs who can block users? I could name a few groups who would not like it.

I'd be curious about resilience in the face of nodes going up/down, whether there are delivery notifications (did the text make it? how do I know?), late/duplicate delivery when a node storing a packet comes up again. Lots of hard problems, didn't see any discussion of any solutions.

The software is claimed to only require WiFi hardware, so should be available to loads of people.

The code is here apparently https://github.com/hrushim/LifeNet

I am fairly certain that paramedics and fire fighters already have private radio frequencies that they use.

They mention android but I can't find an apk, nor is it in the appstore. Is it just not released yet?

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