Imagine you and a friend are going hiking in the woods, or to a crowded music festival, or visiting a city overseas. Eventually you might split up for a spell, and it would be handy to be able to stay in touch. But at Bear Mountain there are no towers; at Coachella the towers are there but overloaded; and in Prague, you'll pay for international roaming.

Enter the goTenna, a handy piece of technology that allows two users to essentially carry around their own cell towers. 

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While you can't make voice calls, you can text each other and send GPS coordinates (and precise map locations via goTenna's maps) within a one-mile range in cities, and roughly a four-mile range out in the country. There are no carrier fees to pay because goTenna sends the data via VHF radio waves.

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If you're a regular Core77 reader, you've seen goTenna covered here before: We took a closer look at the development in our In the Details section, and we gave it a nod in our Core77 Design Awards Consumer Product category. Now the goTenna's racking up more glory as a finalist in the 2016 IDEA Awards in the Communication category.

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Congratulations to Mark Prommel, IDSA, Marco Perry, IDSA, Peter Chung, Lisa Yanz Lehman, IDSA and Chad Ingerick of Pensa; and Daniela Perdomo and Jorge Perdomo of goTenna.

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