In the future, people can become telephone network nodes.

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    The deployment of mobile communications infrastructure is not easy, it is quite expensive, it often meets with social resistance, but this is a necessary step to increase network coverage. Therefore, developers of mobile communication systems are considering alternatives, including a proposal on which network members could become carriers of its portable nodes.

    A study at Queen's University in Belfast examines the use of special wearable sensors by the public. The sensors will interact with each other, which will significantly reduce power consumption compared to traditional antennas, provide wider coverage and the ability to adapt to the number of requests from end devices.

    The system is extremely simple. Instead of making hundreds and thousands of separate connections between different devices and a telephone tower, each member of the network sends a signal to someone who is nearby, from whom the signal is redirected to the next person, and so on, until it reaches its destination.

    Body-to-body networks or BBNs (Body to Body Networks) can be organized using existing devices, such as your mobile phone, so you don’t need to install additional equipment. One of the significant advantages of such networks could be that large crowds of people could increase the coverage of the network in this area, and not reduce it, making the call from this point difficult to access.

    “If the idea gets the move, BBNs will also be able to reduce the number of base stations needed to serve mobile phone users, especially in areas with high population densities,” said a researcher at Queen’s University. “Such a system could help facilitate public perception of the adverse health effects associated with the use of existing networks, as well as make mobile networks more environmentally friendly due to the significantly lower capacities required for work.”

    Although such networks are still in their infancy today, Cotton estimates that they could reach more than 400 million devices worldwide by 2014.

    via Wired

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