Mobile P2P around the corner?

Probably not exactly, but this would really be cool!

Swedish startup Terranet has developed mobile Peer to Peer technology.

By integrating a hardware module in the mobile phone or adding it as an add-on accessory, a direct radio communication becomes possible within approximately up to 5km range between individual mobile phones. Without base stations or any other operator infrastructure!

According to Sydsvenska Dagbladet, the price level of an extention unit (either integrated in the mobile phone or as an add-on accessory) is estimated around 500 Swedish Crowns, which translates in roughly US$69.

If I am reading the site correctly:

TerraNet integrates seamlessly with standardized wired and wireless VoIP solutions. Customers are the world's leading VoIP operators and broadband providers and developers of mobile phones and/or walkie-talkies. End users are people who would like to make free mobile phone calls locally and to the entire world.

the technology seems to be some kind of WiFi flavor.

It would be interesting to see the power consumption of the resulting unit as a mobile phone should be usable at least one day. Still, the idea is very interesting. It will allow to bypass mobile operators in some situations affecting their traffic. It definitely could hurt service like Push-to-talk over Cellular for typical use cases like a family communicating in the mall.

The technology will not always be useful, but has the potential to harm operator traffic if a peer user density is high enough, e.g. in large urban areas.