27 January 2011 - http://servalproject.

org
 The Serval Project
Dr. Paul Gardner-Stephen paul@servalproject.org,
Rural, Remote & Humanitarian Telecommunications Research Fellow, Flinders University
Founder, The Serval Project (servalproject.org)

27 January 2011 - http://servalproject.org

 Disaster: An Inconvenient Truth

Earthquake

Bushfires/Wildfires

Tsunami/Floods
Telecommunications systems are often damaged or entirely unavailable.
Developing and Remote
Populations
Aboriginal communities
( Photo en:Nambassa Trust and Peter Terry)

Villages and settlements in

developing areas
(Photo Vanessa McLaughlin )

Rural and remote areas

Telecommunications infrastructure is too costly to provide ubiquitous

and affordable services, especially to the poorest.
What Sort of Mesh Network?
Serval's focus: Telephony capability, then data
– A close affinity with villagetelco.org
Local telephone calls are valuable!
Disaster response was our inspiration, which
allowed us to simplify our approach by making
several assumptions ...
27 January 2011 - http://servalproject.org
27 January 2011 - http://servalproject.org
27 January 2011 - http://servalproject.org
What Sort of Mesh Network (2)?
So how to structure an entirely peer to peer
telephone network that can work anywhere?
Self-organising ad-hoc mesh (no other way)
Wireless (no other way)
Self-Claiming of telephone numbers (no other way)
Authentication (there's always one tricky one ...)

27 January 2011 - http://servalproject.org

Solving Authentication
A simple solution …
Push authentication from software to wetware.
Best-effort authentication for best-effort networks
.. but protocol has support for strong PKI when possible
Two aspects:
Capture voice signature on first use
Play voice signature to callers before connection
Do not under-estimate the value of self-claiming
existing telephone numbers for disaster response!
27 January 2011 - http://servalproject.org
Progress to Date
Seed funding from The Awesome Foundation
Successful technology demonstration in the
Arkaroola Sanctuary in the Australian Outback.
Lots of enquiries from NGOs, companies, a phone
manufacturer, a telco and even spooks, but not so
much money yet, but a three year fellowship from
Flinders University.
Calls deep underground
Self-organising 3G PSTN gateway (demo today)
Now time for a quick demo ...
Air-Clutch: Zero Idle Traffic Uplink
Share one uplink between many phones via mesh
But SIP is too chatty, especially for satellite:
~1KB/minute = 1.44MB/day = ~ $14/day per phone!
DNA termination either side of uplink: 0KB/day idle
= scalable.
Only traffic we need is ~100 bytes each time a new
phone joins the mesh
Store-and-forward (voice mail, SMS) cheaper
<$0.05/SMS over satellite, comparable to what carriers
charge terrestrially
Where to now?
Demo outside during lunch
Pursue our technology road map
Apply for more grants, commercial funding
Give me 20 good people, and I will change the
world.
Make sure this technology helps all people,
especially the poor and vulnerable; we can help
bridge the digital divide.
Our Dream ...
 Questions?
The Serval Project & Flinders University

Dr. Paul Gardner-Stephen

Founder, The Serval Project, &
Rural, Remote & Humanitarian Telecommunications
Research Fellow, Flinders University.
paul@servalproject.org
paul.gardner-stephen@flinders.edu.au
27 January 2011 - http://servalproject.org