What's the real scope of hardware openness?

[Mikko J Rauhala]

On ti, 2007-08-07 at 12:14 +0200, Luca Dionisi wrote:
> If I understand correctly, the real big problem, as for legal
> issues and technical issues, is the GSM protocol.
> 
> Using WiFi for a similar goal should be fine, though.
> 
> The problem is that you can reach much shorter distances
> without the help of someone else's spot.
[...]
> Do I mistake again?

Not really, though I think I should again remind you that the _reason_
you get good range for your power with GSM is _because_ the towers
centrally controls the frequencies and timeslots that the handsets use
for transmissions, and everybody plays by those rules.

And also, wrt. mesh networking, you still don't really want to allow
your phone, while it's mobile, to work as a bridge in the mesh;
otherwise the battery would be dead in no time. But sure, advocate lots
of open access points and perhaps putting the phone in mesh mode if it's
hooked up to external power. And still there will be severe scalability
issues, but what the hey, it's possible for _some_ N, right? :]

-- 
Mikko J Rauhala <mjrauhal at cc.helsinki.fi>
University of Helsinki