From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-Id: From: David Arnold To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net> In-Reply-To: <72c237151fdc2c4fbccb4067b79c0e84@9netics.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v930.3) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 15:45:39 -0500 References: <72c237151fdc2c4fbccb4067b79c0e84@9netics.com> Subject: Re: [9fans] Android / G1 Topicbox-Message-UUID: a2775d38-ead4-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 On 16/02/2009, at 2:26 PM, Skip Tavakkolian wrote: > do mobile carriers allow (in a legal sense) unblessed device/OS on > their networks? In the Linux-based phones that I'm familiar with, the GSM protocol is implemented as a separate module. It uses a serial interface (and an extended AT command set) to communicate with the application processor. This 'baseband' module has its own firmware, and the source code for that is typically not available except under NDA and license. Bluetooth and WiFi modules are similar. This neatly avoids the issue of unblessed devices: the module manufacturer does the certification against the standard, and the serial command set doesn't allow applications to override anything that could cause bad interactions with the network. d