According to PhysOrg.com, Australian scientists have developed
software to enable mobile phones to work in remote areas where
there is no conventional coverage. The technology enables
ordinary mobile phones to make and receive calls without the
need for phone towers or satellites. The Serval Project, run by
professor Paul Gardner-Stephen of Flinders University in
Adelaide, South Australia, aims to "provide fast, cheap, robust
and effective telecommunications systems" for areas where there
is currently no telephone infrastructure, or where the
infrastructure has been destroyed by natural disasters or civil
unrest. The project includes two systems that can operate
separately or be combined. One is specifically for disaster
areas and consists of a temporary self-organizing and self-
powered mobile phone network that operates via small phone
towers dropped into the area by aircraft. The second system
consists of a permanent mesh-based phone network between Wi-Fi
enabled mobile phones — with no tower infrastructure