reprapPhone

Although this topic is not for this forum, there's a lot of people here who are experienced with software and hardware, so I want to share my idea.

When the internet first came out, everything was transmitted through wires. Additional towers for wireless internet came later, and were strictly optional. Now our smartphones have much more capability than computers 10 years ago. Towers were optional then and are optional now. If we were to connect the smartphones to each other to create a net, towers wouldn't be needed at all. Modern smartphones have the capability to act as a server, as well as the ability to transmit signals between each other.We just have to connect phones to each other by GSM module. Same internet, but no need to pay.

We are so used to paying for everything that we are paying big money for a service that doesn't make any sense at all. We are paying entirely for permission to use our own phones, which we already paid for. As well as the fact that wifi reaches the span of maybe a building, whereas GSM reaches several kilometers
Certainly there are problems, such as battery life and radiation. But it's simple to install GSM on a desktop or laptop and use the same concept.
I've heard of similar experiments in Australia regarding wifi, and there were several successes, some even over large distances. It would be interesting to find out if these studies are still continuing.

Of course, to make this happen, hardware, software, and firmware must be modified, and a new protocol must be written.
Big phone companies will not do this, as their first and foremost goal is to make money. Thus, this can only be done with a big community through an open source project.
We pay big money for smartphones, and it is our right to use them in the way we see fit. If the reprap community can built a reprap printer, which is no easy task, why not built a reprap phone?
Finally, as this method would be a result of an interaction between devices and not towers, it is nearly impossible to block or filter this net by any government or secret service.

My tin foil hat can communicate with other solar systems. Who needs phones?

Its called an Ad-hoc network and they were popular when wireless routers first came out to share a single network connection. Soon after the corporations started to instill fear into everyone about criminals using your network connection to access illegal content and how you would be held liable all so they could sell each house a separate internet plan. So I do not think the corporate powers would let you circumvent their cash cow.

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it is secret stuff!

Hi AndreyR, in addition to ad hoc networks mentioned by Sublime, there are a number of other projects/protocols that you might be interested in.

There is Project Meshnet:

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Project Meshnet website
This project hopes to supplement the current infrastructure to create a secure, independent network that can operate under any condition including natural disaster or general failure of existing infrastructure.

The ham radio crowd have been doing this sort of thing since forever... admittedly the bandwidth is kind of low. You might be interested in APRS, the "digital communications information channel for Ham radio". The ham crowd (I think) is strictly opposed to any form of encrypted communication, so this may not be an option for private communications.

And there is also RONJA:

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RONJA website
Ronja is a free technology project for reliable optical data links with a current range of 1.4km and a communication speed of 10Mbps full duplex.

Applications of this wireless networking device include backbone of free, public, and community networks, individual and corporate Internet connectivity, and also home and building security. High reliability and availability linking is possible in combination with WiFi devices. The Twibright Ronja datalink can network neighbouring houses with cross-street ethernet access, solve the last mile problem for ISP’s, or provide a link layer for fast neighbourhood mesh networks.

Lastly, although not really related to phones, the OpenStreetMap project is in a similar spirit - see this interesting article about why the world needs an open source alternative for mapping.

Also OpenBTS:

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OpenBTS (Open Base Transceiver Station) is a software-based GSM access point, allowing standard GSM-compatible mobile phones to be used as SIP endpoints in Voice over IP (VOIP) networks. OpenBTS is an open source software that was developed and is maintained by Range Networks. The public release of OpenBTS is notable for being the first free software implementation of the lower three layers of the industry-standard GSM protocol stack.

I guess that means it's already been done!

I think that OP proposed solution is technically not feasible, problem is many-fold. For example with basic Wi-Fi you have 4 non overlapping channels @54Mbps, that's not enough to provide internet access for multiple apartment building by current standards. Then there are connection reliability issues, routing issues, media access control issues caused by constantly changing and not optimal topology of network. Such system can IMO work for simple message delivering, but not for real time multimedia/internet access.