Posted on 09/30/2014 10:44:32 AM PDT by Utilizer
A new feature being added to the LTE protocol that smartphones use to communicate with cellular towers will make it possible to bypass those towers altogether. Phones will be able to “talk” directly to other mobile devices and to beacons located in shops and other businesses.
Known as LTE Direct, the wireless technology has a range of up to 500 meters, far more than either Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. It is included in update to the LTE standard slated for approval this year, and devices capable of LTE Direct could appear as soon as late 2015.
LTE Direct has been pioneered by Qualcomm, which has been working on the technology for around seven years. At the mobile chip manufacturer’s Uplinq conference in San Francisco this month, it announced that it’s helping partners including Facebook and Yahoo experiment with the technology.
Researchers are, for example, testing LTE Direct as a way to allow smartphones to automatically discover nearby people, businesses, and other information. Some see the technology as a potential new channel for targeted promotions or advertising.
(Excerpt) Read more at technologyreview.com ...
I would be concerned, first off, as to whether or not this would be used for more detailed tracking purposes, and not just by governmental types.
You'll be able to get your service contract directly through the NSA.
I imagine this is why Comcast wanted to give passing third-parties access to your home wireless router.
Considering that the ‘doze OS appears to already have an NSA backdoor key already installed, I believe that to already be the case for quite a few people.
It appears to be a VOIP via wireless to the nearest link to the internet. There are already MVNOs doing this via wifi.
Thing is, who picks up the tab for the eventual internet connection?
I dunno, but two days ago T-mobile ran an ad that said LTE is here, and sure enough I enabled wireless on my phone and it immediately connected to a local wifi, for calling and texting even though my cell tower signal is much stronger. You’d think LTE would evaluate signal strength and stick with the tower instead of running to somebody’s wifi router.
Oh noes! Think of what the terrorists could do with that!
Every cell phone doubles as a cell tower.
However, are the phone companies going to pay you any money for helping them route other peoples' information through your phone?
Also, we've heard about hackers creating fake cell towers. It should be even easier to create fake LTE's that can scan lots of data as it passes through.
And if you don't have the latest/greatest phone you may never be able to use it if it is constantly being bogged down by other peoples' traffic.
Sounds great if you live in a heavily populated area. Not so much if you value rural life.
Ha ha Ha ha ha! Comment of the day!
It’s freaking wrong.
What Sprint is essentially doing is off loading their network to others and reduce congestion.
So many privacy issues with this...
Yup! When we added phone to our Comcast they sent an Arris modem/router. I already had a separate modem and Netgear router setup in the back bedroom. On that was Wifi for the bac and a guest network, both pw protected.
Now I have the Xfnity wifi in LR along with the Xfinity third - party thing.
That HAS to be slowing down our net feed although Comcast did boost us from (dependable) 15-20mbps to 35-50 mbps.
I have heard that even our old pipeline that Copmcast said was impossible to update without total rewire DID have a 100+mbps capacity so maybe we won’t slow down.
Still I am not comfortable with the third party thing.
Nice, a built in walke-talki app.I love it.
That’s what I’ve thought, it’s just walkie-talkie.
The NSA will not like this, unless they can find a way to jack in.
” You have exceeded your allotted connection cap. You will now be charged $1.95 for every connection you make. please refer to out TOS...thank you”
I think it was already determined that those towers were put up by some Governmental Unnamed Agency or more than one.
I swear one of the earlier cell phone models had a walkie talkie mode.
LTE stands for long-term evolution.
Part of that evolution for ALL the carriers is moving to an all IP infrastructure and delivery model.
The GSM “4G” model of today will be sunset.
The ‘physical layer’ of Wi-Fi or cell tower connectivity will become moot, because both will be an IP connection.
The model will move off of ‘minutes’ of usage, and on to amount of data.
Just the next model.
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