Mobile Phone Research

This page is an anchor for my sub-projects on researching "Open" phones. "Open" is defined here to mean a phone which is not designed or configured to preclude customization or utilization of the phone itself apart from necessary restrictions on use of the radio in contravention with the service agreement or the law.

Random items of note:

• The OpenMoko Project's pilot phone, the Neo FreeRunner is now available for purchase.
• The HTC "Mogul" uses a Qualcomm MSM7500 chip, which supposedly supports the ARMv6 instruction set. I am researching whether it might be possible to port/build NetBSD/ARM to this phone or others.
• Despite the overwhelming global consensus on the usage of GSM-based technologies, I am still drawn to CDMA because of the relative unattractiveness of AT&T and Verizon, leaving Sprint/Nextel. I have been a Nextel customer for over 5 years, and have been mostly satisfied with their service. I realize that this decision will limit my ability to locate decent equipment due to the monopoly by Qualcomm on CDMA technology but so far am unwilling to commit to any change in platform. Perhaps WiMAX will become compelling enough to offer an escape route that I haven't had up through now.
• HTC in conjunction with Sprint have released an Android-powered CDMA handset, called the "Hero". I picked up one of these and will be exploring it, here.