Ephrain Schwartz writes about Mobile Telecommunications Radio and Relay or MOTERAN in his weekly InfoWorld column here.
MOTERAN allows any 802.11X or Bluetooth device to act as a relay in passing information to another device towards its destination point. The belief is that this concept will reduce the number of base stations and switches required and thereby lowering the cost of deployment. (Could it improve the quality of service also?) MOTERAN is being developed by Mitsubushi with Detcon (the engineering and consulting affiliate of Deutsche Telecom) who holds the patent.
Its an interesting concept to watch and see what its potential and shortcomings are. What is interesting is how distributed decentralized technologies can be applied to reduce costs, provide better service and perhaps make an otherwise unfeasible idea possible -- not just "destroying the music industry" and chatting with friends and family.
