Sunday, November 9, 2014

US carriers consider using M87 wireless mesh technology to expand networks

M87 Concept
LifeNet
Smart phone ad hoc network - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Smart Phone Ad hoc Networks (SPANs) leverage the existing hardware (primarily Bluetooth and Wi-Fi) in commercially available smart phones to create peer-to-peer networks without relying on cellular carrier networks, wireless access points, or traditional network infrastructure. SPANs differ from traditional hub and spoke networks, such as Wi-Fi Direct, in that they support multi-hop relays and there is no notion of a group leader so peers can join and leave at will without destroying the network.
M87
Our Client SON™ product unlocks the tremendous latent capacity in existing mobile devices by adding them to the network infrastructure. There are currently over one billion smartphones in use worldwide. Our software adds these smartphones to the network infrastructure, creating a carrier-grade device to device network that increases both coverage and capacity without sacrificing security or billing accuracy.
Qualcomm invests in 4G-bandwidth sharing, getting in on M87’s $3M Series A | Qualcomm Ventures
A small Austin startup called M87 thinks we would all have a better mobile data experience if we’d just share our phones’ 4G connections with one another. Apparently Qualcomm agrees with them.
M87 has closed a $3 million Series A round of funding, which included new strategic investors Qualcomm Ventures and Chinese data center hosting provide 21Vianet along with M87’s original angel investors.
M87 sprang out of the University of Texas’s wireless engineering department after developing a crowdsourced connectivity technology that allows nearby phones to link up via Wi-Fi and use each other 3G and 4G connections to the mobile network. The technology is similar to the crowd mesh-networking technology developed by another emerging networking startup Open Garden, but rather than offer it to consumers, M87 wants to sell it to carriers so they can link their subscribers together.
At first glance, you’d think carriers would be against having their customers share connections, since selling individual data plans is their bread and butter. But M87 has developed a way for customers to share their radios with nearby users without dipping into their own data plans and without compromising their security.
Two US carriers are interested in "data signal sharing" technology for 2015 - Android Authority
Imagine walking down the street in your neighborhood and having full 4G LTE connectivity on your device. Also imagine your neighbor walking on the other side of the street with just 1-2 bars of 4G LTE connectivity. Would you share some of your connection/bandwidth to help boost your neighbor’s connection?
Well, get ready as U.S. carriers are testing technology that boosts mobile download speeds by allowing one person to “borrow” bandwidth from other devices nearby. In the beginning of 2015 in Hong Kong, 21Vianet (a Chinese Internet company) will offer technology deemed “mesh networking” that takes someone with a poor data signal and connect that signal to a stronger data signal through a Wi-Fi link.
Boosting Mobile Data Speeds by Having Smartphones Team Up | MIT Technology Review

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