Perhaps this is the future of worldwide cellular deployments for rural areas? Here's the first part of this article (click on the link below for the full text).
"Sean Gallagher - Feb 27 2014 -- Deep in the jungles of West Papua’s central highlands, there is a village with its own mobile telecommunications network. That network runs in a box latched to the top of a tree, providing the only reliable cell coverage anywhere within a four-hour drive. This small setup has created a booming local mobile economy—and it could be the harbinger of a whole new class of private and community mobile networks that change the shape of mobile for those who have been underserved or overcharged by traditional phone carriers.
The single “tower” cell network is the work of graduate students from the University of California at Berkeley’s Technology and Infrastructure for Emerging Regions (TIER) research group, under the direction of Professor Eric Brewer—the founder of the content delivery network Inktomi. The group built its mobile solution with software developed in San Francisco and some off-the-shelf hardware adapted for the task. Working with the Methodist church-owned school Misionaris Sekolahin and local merchants, a TIER team led by graduate students Kurtis Heimerl, Shaddi Hasan and Kashif Ali gave this village of about 1,500 people its first local phone network—and a much-needed connection to the outside world.
And that network runs on open source. OpenBTS, an all-software cellular transceiver, is at the heart of the network running on that box attached to a treetop. Someday, if those working with the technology have their way, it could do for mobile networks what TCP/IP and open source did for the Internet. The dream is to help mobile break free from the confines of telephone providers’ locked-down spectrum, turning it into a platform for the development of a whole new range of applications that use spectrum “white space” to connect mobile devices of every kind. It could also democratize telecommunications around the world in unexpected ways. Startup Range Networks, the company that developed the open-source software powering the network, has much bigger plans for the technology. It wants to adapt the transceiver to use unlicensed spectrum for small-scale cellular networks all over the world without the need to depend on the generosity of incumbent telecom providers or government regulators."
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/02/cellulars-open-source-future-is-latched-to-tallest-tree-in-the-village/
