How to : Make Phone calls without SIM card and Antenna Relay

In recent weeks, the owners of a mobile phone equipped with the Android can download a free software called Serval. Despite a discreet arrival, it could revolutionize the phone market and put into question the state control networks. For the install , you must first "rooter" his phone, that is to say, disable the locks imposed by the operators. Therefore, Serval allows a group of mobile to connect directly, without a SIM card or base station. It operates on a mesh ("mesh") networks of creating temporary and shifting, fully decentralized. When two devices are close to each other (a few hundred meters), they talk to online. If they are too far away, Serval other phones in the same area automatically collect and retransmit communication, step by step - without their owners having to do anything.

Serval was invented by Paul Gardner-Stephen , an Australian researcher from the University of Flinders Adelaide, with the help of students from the National Institute of Science Applied Lyon (INSA). He said his invention restores the true potential of mobile phones: "In the 1980s, engineers working on early prototypes had imagined mesh networks, simple and cheap. But the phone companies had prevented them from working in this direction because they wanted to preserve their pyramid model controlled from above, inherited the corded phone - technically obsolete but commercially very profitable. Even today, if the mobile can not speak directly to the local level, it is because that 'they are locked by the operators, which require users to pass by their relays and thus their billing systems. "

In its first incarnation, Serval uses Wi-Fi transmitters and telephones, if necessary, of hotspots around. But the next version will use directly their main transmitter, on the GSM frequencies - which, in Europe , could pose legal problems. Still difficult to measure, the geopolitical implications of such an invention are potentially important. Mr. Gardner-Stephen hopes to deploy in the priority areas in third world neglected by telephone operators, and in areas where networks have been destroyed by natural disasters. In large cities, where everyone has a mobile, Serval could easily create dense networks and efficient, uncontrolled, commercial or administrative, to the chagrin of the States.

The team of Mr. Gardner-Stephen has devised a system even more powerful: some phones will be specially configured to serve as a relay to all others, including those who are not equipped with the software. In November 2011, Wolverine was awarded in a competition of innovative software held in Seoul ( South Korea ). Already, Chinese mobile manufacturers are interested.