Info on Alcatel Femtocells

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Alex allexander.alex at gmail.com
Tue Nov 27 18:57:22 UTC 2018


 Hi,
little UP:

Vodafone UK and other OpCo like it (VF DE and VF GR I think) made a local
femtocell network based on similar platform from ALU.

Does anyone know something/ever tried to make something like connecting one
of these devs to osmoHNBGW or similar?
Thank you and best regards

Il giorno mar 27 nov 2018 alle ore 19:56 Alex <allexander.alex at gmail.com>
ha scritto:

> Hi,
> thanks for the answer!
>
> This femto seems to have a discrete simcard (it has empty slot accessible
> from the external).
>
> I don't know the setup used by the original operator (TelecomItalia),
> because I bought it from ebay.
>
> I found a possible reset procedure (still to be tested), but I don't think
> it will "unlock" the board.
> Now I'm trying to find the UART on the board, but on the testpoints i only
> see "control" signals and clocks. Nothing seems to be a serial port pattern
> on my oscilloscope.
>
> On this site
> https://web.archive.org/web/20170707063235/https://wiki.thc.org/vodafone
> there are some information on a really similar cell (9361 I think) from
> Vodafone, which has a relly similar IPSEC config, but there ins't any spec.
>
> No one tried to disassemble it or do have just the serial pinout on the
> board?
>
> On the other side I've already deployed the CN part (HLR + MSC + SSGN +
> GSGN + STP + MGW + HNBGW), which seems to be fully operational, but i can't
> test without a test cell.
> I also thing the IuH protocol of this femto is little out-of-standard, but
> from ALU documentation I can't understand the differences with standard IuH.
>
> The idea is to implement ALU's IuH variant on HNBGW if i can take traces
> from a "lab" env, but without the femto it's just impossible.
>
> Il giorno mar 27 nov 2018 alle ore 18:17 Tomcsányi, Domonkos <
> domi at tomcsanyi.net> ha scritto:
>
>> Hi Alex,
>>
>> Femtocells are provisioned with operator data - certificates/keys to be
>> able to talk to the gateway.
>> Some femtocells use EAP-SIM with an embedded SIM card, others just rely
>> on the configuration. If your femto supports a SIM card you can use a SIM
>> card with a known Ki to connect it to your gateway (strongswan I assume).
>> If however there is no SIM card support in the femtocell then you need to
>> somehow re-provision the device - probably using a proprietary software and
>> method.
>> Sorry, this is probably bad news for you.
>>
>> Kind regards,
>> Domi
>>
>>
>> 2018. nov. 27. dátummal, 9:33 időpontban Alex <allexander.alex at gmail.com>
>> írta:
>>
>> Hi to everyone!
>>
>> I'm a new member and I really appreciate the work done here!
>>
>>
>> I'm trying to use Alcatel Femtocells (ALU 9361/9362/9363) with
>> osmo-hnbgw, but I'm still blocked at the IPSEC tunnel step.
>>
>> I've created an IPSEC server with EAP support, but I suspect there is a
>> problem with my  self signed certificate.
>>
>> Probably the femtocell has an internal trusted CA which validates server
>> certs.
>>
>>
>> I din't find the console pins on the board also, so I cannot simply
>> connect to it and have a look at the system level.
>>
>>
>> Has anyone any experience with this kind of HW or just an idea about a
>> possible  work around?
>>
>>
>> Thank you and best regards
>> Alex
>>
>>
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