Astronomers have proposed a global network of radio receivers to search for fast radio bursts. Their concept would use either smart phones and an app listening to a portion of the cellular spectrum allocation, or a low cost device that could be plugged in to the USB port of personal computers.

Full paper available at the link.

Source: [1701.01475] Searching for giga-Jansky fast radio bursts from the Milky Way with a global array of low-cost radio receivers