TuxPhone
Most of us would have heard about the term open source software but there is also something called open hardware, Arduino is one of the famous open hardware microcontroller board. In this generation it is obvious that everybody has a mobile phone.
So the next question would be is there any open hardware for mobile phones?
The answer is YES! This actually lets you to design your cell phone. Isn’t that interesting ?
Rowe started the Free Telephony Project, or free telephony project in 2005. Like many developers of open source software, Rowe could not bear the desire to develop the PBX IP04, “a system of low cost telephony can handle analog phone calls and the Internet using VoIP”
The IP04 is an embedded device powered by the Blackfin processor from Analog Devices, running Linux as operating system and software serving as Asterisk PBX. The IP04 was developed to reduce costs with the implementation of telephone systems to the point that anyone could deploy the system in developing nations. The IP04 has led to other devices, such as IP01, IP02 and the IP08, which have the largest differential amount of possible connections to analog telephones or analog lines, if the VoIP is not available.
The innovations of the telephony hardware open source are not limited. It is clear that the community is taking things further away. The project OpenBTS is an application of open source Unix that uses the USRP to provide a common GSM phones for the GSM air interface (the” A ”) and uses the Asterisk software PBX to connect calls. The combination of the GSM air interface to the transmission via VoIP can form the basis of a new type of network for mobile phones, capable of being deployed and operated at costs much lower than current technologies in developing countries. “Essentially, they added a hardware device source (the USRP) to open source software, and enabled the creation of a wireless network compatible with many mobile phones around the world.
There is another project called TUX PHONE which is based on the idea of open hardware platform. You can get more information at: http://www.opencellphone.org/index.php?title=Main_Page
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