Ericsson has come up with an innovative solution to the problem of finding dead spots where mobile phones lose reception in New York.
In more rural locations setting up a network is as simple as making sure there are a certain number of transmitters per square mile but in a major city the issue becomes far more complicated due to the number of large buildings.
Ericsson are proposing to collect data from New York cab drivers to find holes in the grid and hope to map and fix the dead zones. Small mobile sensors about the size of a computer modem will be placed in the cabs to collect data as the cab drives around the city.
Niklas Kylvag, Ericsson’s manager of fleet services said:
Our favorite vehicle is the taxicab because of the randomness in its circulation. We have used trains, trucks, buses, delivery vehicles, limousines, pretty much anything that is moving and has electricity in it. I have myself done testing in the Swiss Alps with this on my back at a ski resort.
