workgoodwhy dont android phones have a bios like computers and be able to load a generic arm linux iso or windows one,or be easily rooted?
Phones evolved into pocket PCs but they were and still are primarily radios. Radios that YOU personally aren’t licensed to operate, the phone manufacturer/carrier is. Open source OSs would allow users to operate those radios, which means they could develop communications using cell carrier bands without a license. Imagine meshtastic at 50x the bitrate and everybody and their grandma already has the hardware. Why would people keep paying $60/mo to have every communication recorded and given to the government?
The current telecommunications system is the most powerful mass surveillance tool to ever exist. That’s not something that will be dismantled easily.
Cellular carriers don’t have more bandwidth, usually they have a lot less, they just use it more efficiently and reuse that same bandwdith across many cells. Something like meshtastic is great but without centralised tracking of user equipment you cant handover between cells without dropping traffic. Meshtastic uses much larger bands less efficiently.
“Less efficient” is quite a misnomer here, since the meshtastic network mainly has to work around the regulations, which leaves it only small timeframes for transmitting. When such a project can only transmit for a few minutes per hour, then naturally it has way less bandwidth overall
It “works around legislation” by using a sub gigahertz open band that wasn’t designed for mobile comms. Lora was designed for low bandwidth M2M communications which is why it’s allocated 13 odd MHz and in a band that’s good for long range. That band is about the same size as a typical cellular carrier frequency band but as I said cellular carriers have the infrastructure and equipment to make efficient use of it, dividing it up between cells and reusing across cells. That’s the only way to get high bandwidth comms out of sub gigahertz frequencies. Even then carriers also supplement their longer range sub gigahertz with higher frequency bands in denser areas.