Making a Mesh Router/Gateway from a Smartphone: is that a Practical Solution?

This paper aims at answering the question whether it is practical to build a mesh-phone or not. A mesh-phone is a smartphone acting as a mesh router, i.e. either actively participating in the process of packet forwarding towards a mesh gateway, or acting itself as a gateway toward the Internet. Technical aspects of the mesh-phone implementation, such as design constraints and implementation details, are addressed. The technical feasibility is validated by describing the implementation of a prototype of the mesh-enabled phone over the OpenmokoTM open platform. Besides technical feasibility also convenience of the addressed solution is analyzed in terms of the consumed power, and some ‘‘energy-saving’’ related enhancements are suggested to be applied to future user’s devices.