It also runs into a public good problem, unless turning off the functionality is somehow made impossible. Battery life of cell phones is inconveniently short as it is, and the last thing people want is to spend even more energy on routing strangers’ messages. (If necessary, of course, they can turn it on just to send a message.)
Hams do this sort of thing already. If they could hook their G3 cell phone to a car battery and easily make it into a G3 APRS digipeater, they would do that too.
If the cell phone towers are down, maintaining a charge cell phone battery is near useless in current emergencies.
It also runs into a public good problem, unless turning off the functionality is somehow made impossible. Battery life of cell phones is inconveniently short as it is, and the last thing people want is to spend even more energy on routing strangers’ messages. (If necessary, of course, they can turn it on just to send a message.)
Hams do this sort of thing already. If they could hook their G3 cell phone to a car battery and easily make it into a G3 APRS digipeater, they would do that too.
If the cell phone towers are down, maintaining a charge cell phone battery is near useless in current emergencies.