Sydney, July 15: Scientists have developed a mobile phone that does not need a reception tower to make calls.
Researchers from Flinders University in South Australia built software that incorporates a mobile phone tower into the phone itself.
Dr Paul Gardner-Stephen told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that it used a WiFi interface to carry voice that didn’t need to go back to a central repository.
He tested the technology in the remote desert of central Australia, where there was no mobile or satellite phone reception, and was able to talk to a colleague on another mobile phone several hundred metres away.
Gardner-Stephen said the system could provide an instant mobile phone network in a disaster such as the Haiti earthquake during which mobile phone towers were destroyed.
The scientists are now working to increase the range, improve sound quality and develop a way of quickly getting the system working in a disaster zone.
–Agencies