Hi,
I have been looking around and I am wondering, when you are interested in a consumer 3G / Femto or Pico cell it might be very cheap through AT&T at around $150. Might somebody be working rverse engineering on those cheaper cells?
The nanoBTS from ipaccess is costing euro 3450 Mind you this is without any software or server, just a single nanoBTS unit. Does anybody have any experience and info about pricing? I find this price crazy but it is the only way in the Netherland to buy it officially. Also I have a license for GSM frequencies ad for that price they only send it to an address.
Thanks
Albert
Hi,
I have been looking around and I am wondering, when you are interested in a consumer 3G / Femto or Pico cell it might be very cheap through AT&T at around $150.
Might somebody be working rverse engineering on those cheaper cells?
Probably, but theses are 3G only, they won't work if your phone doesn't support 3G. The lack of good free ASN1 tool (for PER Unaligned and Aligned) doesn't help because 3G use those a lot.
The nanoBTS from ipaccess is costing euro 3450 Mind you this is without any software or server, just a single nanoBTS unit.
I thing several things contribute to the high price:
- That's part of ip.access revenue stream, they need to make money - Quantity: There is probably much more femtocell made than nanoBTS - GSM vs 3G. I think 3G was designed from the get go to support femtocell and so the RF interface has been designed to be doable with cheap components.
Sylvain
Thanks,
To be honest I thougt a single nanoBTS would be cheaper. Of course the server and software (if you do not use OpenBSC) adds cost, officially you need permission to use GSM frequencies and a license on that GSM channel you want to use. And there are some patents.
How come that some manufacturers can sell a unit that cheap like AT&T does?
Albert
On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 1:00 PM, Sylvain Munaut 246tnt@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
I have been looking around and I am wondering, when you are interested in
a
consumer 3G / Femto or Pico cell it might be very cheap through AT&T at around $150.
Might somebody be working rverse engineering on those cheaper cells?
Probably, but theses are 3G only, they won't work if your phone doesn't support 3G. The lack of good free ASN1 tool (for PER Unaligned and Aligned) doesn't help because 3G use those a lot.
The nanoBTS from ipaccess is costing euro 3450 Mind you this is without
any
software or server, just a single nanoBTS unit.
I thing several things contribute to the high price:
- That's part of ip.access revenue stream, they need to make money
- Quantity: There is probably much more femtocell made than nanoBTS
- GSM vs 3G. I think 3G was designed from the get go to support
femtocell and so the RF interface has been designed to be doable with cheap components.
Sylvain
How come that some manufacturers can sell a unit that cheap like AT&T does?
Did you read what I posted ?
I thing several things contribute to the high price:
- That's part of ip.access revenue stream, they need to make money - Quantity: There is probably much more femtocell made than nanoBTS - GSM vs 3G. I think 3G was designed from the get go to support femtocell and so the RF interface has been designed to be doable with cheap components.
On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 01:00:07PM +0200, Sylvain Munaut wrote:
The nanoBTS from ipaccess is costing euro 3450 Mind you this is without any software or server, just a single nanoBTS unit.
I thing several things contribute to the high price:
- That's part of ip.access revenue stream, they need to make money
- Quantity: There is probably much more femtocell made than nanoBTS
Regarding quantity: 3G femtocells in single quantities are also quite expensive! Only if you buy them in volume (as an operator) they become that cheap.
Furthermore, even the nanoBTS becomes _much_ cheaper when you buy it in volume (let's say 1000 units or more)
Thanks for all the answers.
Maybe you heard about the Village-Telco Mesh Potato project? That started out with a router based of openwrt / dd-wrt, and then designed their own Mesh Potato. It is an embedded Asterisk with wifi and mesh networking.
With SDR (software defined radio) would it not be possible to design / develop a cheap GSM basestation? I am a total noob on hardware development but I suppose there is a large market for this. Or maybe somebody already working on reverse engineering other base stations like the nanobts?
If one wanted to design a base station controller, what would be needed? Do you really need something like http://www.percello.com/prc6000.php Or might something simpler be possible with modifying a router and with a different antenna on 1800mhz?
Albert
On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 5:39 PM, Harald Welte laforge@gnumonks.org wrote:
On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 01:00:07PM +0200, Sylvain Munaut wrote:
The nanoBTS from ipaccess is costing euro 3450 Mind you this is without
any
software or server, just a single nanoBTS unit.
I thing several things contribute to the high price:
- That's part of ip.access revenue stream, they need to make money
- Quantity: There is probably much more femtocell made than nanoBTS
Regarding quantity: 3G femtocells in single quantities are also quite expensive! Only if you buy them in volume (as an operator) they become that cheap.
Furthermore, even the nanoBTS becomes _much_ cheaper when you buy it in volume (let's say 1000 units or more)
--
- Harald Welte laforge@gnumonks.org
============================================================================ "Privacy in residential applications is a desirable marketing option." (ETSI EN 300 175-7 Ch. A6)
With SDR (software defined radio) would it not be possible to design / develop a cheap GSM basestation?
See OpenBTS. It uses the USRP wich brings down to ~1000 eur.
Several company are working on custom hardware for OpenBTS, but for a really low price, you need large quantity ...
I am a total noob on hardware development but I suppose there is a large market for this.
You need a license ... so I'd assume the bulk of the market is operators. And for them 2-5k EUR is already dead cheap for a BTS.
Or maybe somebody already working on reverse engineering other base stations like the nanobts?
There are not that many IP based BTS on GSM (not talking 3g here).
Or might something simpler be possible with modifying a router and with a different antenna on 1800mhz?
Not a chance, you need either: - custom hw dedicated to GSM: Doesn't exist cheap yet because of qty. (might happen since some company are working on it using openbts, but no price/data yet). - or something flexible enough like the USRP (but then, it's not a 'consumer' product and so not _that_ cheap).
-
Albert Paijmans -
Harald Welte -
Sylvain Munaut