The Serval Project (often referred to as Serval) is a project financed by the

Shuttleworth Foundation Shuttleworth may refer to: * Shuttleworth (surname) * Shuttleworth, Greater Manchester (historically in Lancashire), a hamlet at the northeastern extremity of the Metropolitan Borough of Bury, England * Shuttleworth (canvassing) * The Shuttleworth ...

, as well as various other organisations and accepting individual donations. It is headquartered at

Flinders University Flinders University, established as The Flinders University of South Australia is a public university, public research university based in Adelaide, South Australia, with a footprint extending across a number of locations in South Australia and ...

in Adelaide, Australia. The project aims to develop technology that can be used to create direct connections between

cellular phone A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This radi ...

s through their

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...

interfaces, without the need of a

mobile phone operator A mobile phone operator, wireless provider, or carrier is a mobile telecommunications company that provides wireless Internet GSM services for mobile device users. The operator gives a SIM card to the customer who inserts it into the mobile devi ...

. The technology allows for live voice calls whenever the mesh is able to find a route between the participants. Text messages and other data can be communicated using a

store and forward Store and forward is a telecommunications technique in which information is sent to an intermediate station where it is kept and sent at a later time to the final destination or to another intermediate station. The intermediate station, or node in ...

system called Rhizome, allowing communication over unlimited distances and without a stable live mesh connection between all participants. The Serval Project includes a collaborate mapping application intended to support disaster relief and recovery efforts. A "mesh extender" is being developed, which establishes a short range Serval mesh over Wi-Fi and joins it with other more distant meshes by linking to other mesh extenders over

packet radio In digital radio, packet radio is the application of packet switching techniques to digital radio communications. Packet radio uses a packet switching Communication protocol, protocol as opposed to circuit switching or message switching protocols ...

operating in the ISM 915 MHz band.

Serval Mesh

Serval Mesh is an Android application and the Serval Project's flagship product. It is currently distributed through various application distribution platforms and repositories and can also be downloaded directly from the project's website. The application may be shared directly from one device to others nearby over WiFi or

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is li ...

. The Serval Mesh application is built out of two components: a user interface called Batphone, and a core networking, encryption, and file sharing component called Serval DNA. The Batphone source code is licensed to the public under the terms of the

GPLv3 The GNU General Public Licenses (GNU GPL or simply GPL) are a series of widely used free software licenses, or ''copyleft'' licenses, that guarantee end users the freedom to run, study, share, or modify the software. The GPL was the first ...

license, whereas the Serval DNA source code is licensed under the terms of the

GPLv2 The GNU General Public Licenses (GNU GPL or simply GPL) are a series of widely used free software licenses, or copyleft, ''copyleft'' licenses, that guarantee end users the freedom to run, study, share, or modify the software. The GPL was th ...

license.

References

External links

* Politics and technology Internet-related activism Proposed telecommunications infrastructure Mesh networking {{telecommunications-stub

Serval Mesh

See also

References

External links