Nokia InSite multiple BTSs with OpenBSC

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Peter Stuge peter at stuge.se
Mon Jul 8 19:15:13 UTC 2013


Sipos Csaba wrote:
> > TODO: Attention: There are some static variables used for states during
> > configuration. Those variables have to be moved to a BTS specific context,
> > otherwise there will most certainly be problems if more than one Nokia BTS
> > is used.
> 
> I don't know what it means "move to a BTS specific context", but based
> on the fact I was able to set up two units with only the modification
> of the RESET_INTERVAL, it does not seems that much of a work, because
> it almost works well as it is.

It means that some real programming is needed. It's not a small
change. It might work as-is with one phone camping to only one of the
two BTSes at a time, but you will likely have corruptions if you have
a bunch of phones on both BTSes at once.


When using nitb with a multi-TRX MetroSite there is a similar pattern
to what you describe - after the BTS is reset using the Nokia BTS
Manager, nitb only ever manages to correctly initialize the first
TRX. An error occurs and nitb exits. Restarting nitb sometimes allows
it to initialize the second TRX, sometimes no. My guess is that
failure or success depends on what phones are sending to the BTS
meanwhile, but it could also be only a matter of timing.

The nokia_site code can definitily be improved when it comes to
startup/shutdown, but I don't know how well known the Nokia OML is.

It would also be nice to listen to the BTS Manager serial port
communication. If I understand correctly, many (all?) things that
BTS Manager can do over serial are also possible over E1.


//Peter




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