In FireChat (Apple’s Mesh Networking app), “my message gets passed along from device to device to device (each serving as a node in the network) until it finds its way to my friend a half mile away”.
Even if everyone is on airplane mode to save battery, bluetooth is on to allow passing data, each device pushing and pulling every message would be a huge battery drain for everyone in the mesh network, but it’s still very cool tech though.
Firechat was developed by open garden and what you’re referring to is apples multipeer connectivity framework. Not like maidsafe really but mesh networking is something many people in this community and all over are excited about. It’s rumored that apple plans on pushing mesh networks in there agenda as time goes on. Have any questions feel free to ask a very nice group of people here but be sure to the FAQ on the main page.
If only Multi Peer had a range between nodes of half mile or better. I think it may top out at 30 feet. We need something that puts cable and the telcos out of business.
@Warren this might be a step
Pcell sounds promising. But it seems as though that’s the half way point between a cell tower and p2p in that it’s like small distributed cells that aren’t large and unsightly like a tower and then has a way of managing data that keeps speeds high. All the users share data evenly in real time I believe as well. They also claim really fast upload speeds which would be awesome. If you haven’t heard of them check it out.
Yes. The cite has considered LiFi, the balloons and drones (up 5 years at a time) software radio like PCell. The LiFi alone might be enough. The Lidar on the Google cars might provide a communiations network. Getting the latency down on Mesh is key and then getting it into stuff that is wholly end user owned seems to be the goal. I like the solar roadway idea too as a stepping stone, but it would be municipal and still problematic, but help bring a capacity glut that wold be useful in getting rid of cable and teleco.
I think its important that open systems community form the goal of getting rid of certain industries. We need to out right get rid of telco, cable and oil.
I used to work at Open Garden before Maidsafe. 
And they don’t claim it to be secure or anything, simple p2p messaging for times when connectivity is unreliable.
In terms of mesh networks as a whole, Open Garden is the commercial, hyper-local version for p2p connectivity between phones and computers. Comparably, p2p links between home routers supported by stronger backbone links are networks that can sustain entire regions. An example of this would be an effort I volunteer for in Oakland http://peoplesopen.net/
Here’s some recent news on Firechat in relation to HK protests:
Also, moving this thread to the strategy category.