Hi!
On Thu, Feb 11, 2021 at 11:03:45PM +0100, Saturn Rocket wrote:
Huawei BTS3900B, 900/1800MHz variant. New in box, quite a few available with free international shipping.
Supposedly speaks Abis.
Well, if it's a BTS, by definition it speaks Abis. However, Abis is not fully standardized, and every vendor has their own dialect. We reverse-engineered the dialects of Siemens, Nokia, Ericsson and ip.access to support them in OpenBSC, OsmoNITB and today OsmoBSC.
However, what is required for anyone looking at implementing this, is at the very least some protocol traces from a working installation of those (or at least any other) Huawei BTS towards a Huawei BSC.
Also, as the documentation states it uses IPsec, there is the question on how to configure the BTS with the correct configuration/credentials to connect to your own IPsec gateway.
Regards, Harald
Well, if it's a BTS, by definition it speaks Abis. However, Abis is not fully standardized, and every vendor has their own dialect. We reverse-engineered the dialects of Siemens, Nokia, Ericsson and ip.access to support them in OpenBSC, OsmoNITB and today OsmoBSC.
Whoops, Brain blip on my part... It speaks the Huawei flavour of Abis over IP, and not over E1.
There seems to be quite a few bits of documentation on scribd https://www.scribd.com/search?content_type=documents&page=1&query=bt...
Came across this blog too: https://nickvsnetworking.com/tag/bts3900/
Seems they've been experimenting with an larger sibling of this Picocell.
Best,
-Saturn
On Fri, Feb 12, 2021 at 05:45:45PM +0100, Saturn Rocket wrote:
Seems they've been experimenting with an larger sibling of this Picocell.
Well, the fact that Huawei calls their Macro BTS 3900 and the Pico 3900B doesn't really mean they have anything in common, except the branding. I would typically be very surprised if a lot of similarity in terms of code / system architecture is found between femto/picocells and the large macro cells.
However, the Abis protocol dialect will more likely be the same, as a vendor doesn't want to rewrite the BSC just because a new BTS model is released.
Based on what I read about the 3900B, I think it will be very hard to support it.
Contrary to all the other vendors / BTSs we've worked with, there doesn't really seem to be a real LMT for it (LMT means Local Maintenance Terminal). That LMT is what you connect via UART or Ethernet to the BTS in order to configure it. Ericsson calls it OMT.
For Huawei, there's also a "LMT", but it actually connects over IP to the BSC (!) and then accesses the BTS over the Backhaul from the BSC side. I guess they didn't really understand the "Local" part?
The actual BTS software is then also installed from the BSC.
So without having the BSC, It will definitely be much harder to even configure such a BTS. Nokia/Siemens/Ericsson/ip.access are definitely simpler that way (not listing osmobts based BTSs here, as they obviously are easiest to set up).
Interesting to hear about an LMT not being present, because all Huawei products I encountered provided a usable WebUI via a local ethernet port. Of course I must disclose these were a lot newer products, mainly supporting LTE and NR, sometimes UMTS. MML scripting is also present on those for quicker configuration.
Oh well, it wasn’t like that in the old days I guess :-).
Kind regards, Domi
12.02.2021 dátummal, 19:40 időpontban Harald Welte laforge@gnumonks.org írta:
On Fri, Feb 12, 2021 at 05:45:45PM +0100, Saturn Rocket wrote:
Seems they've been experimenting with an larger sibling of this Picocell.
Well, the fact that Huawei calls their Macro BTS 3900 and the Pico 3900B doesn't really mean they have anything in common, except the branding. I would typically be very surprised if a lot of similarity in terms of code / system architecture is found between femto/picocells and the large macro cells.
However, the Abis protocol dialect will more likely be the same, as a vendor doesn't want to rewrite the BSC just because a new BTS model is released.
Based on what I read about the 3900B, I think it will be very hard to support it.
Contrary to all the other vendors / BTSs we've worked with, there doesn't really seem to be a real LMT for it (LMT means Local Maintenance Terminal). That LMT is what you connect via UART or Ethernet to the BTS in order to configure it. Ericsson calls it OMT.
For Huawei, there's also a "LMT", but it actually connects over IP to the BSC (!) and then accesses the BTS over the Backhaul from the BSC side. I guess they didn't really understand the "Local" part?
The actual BTS software is then also installed from the BSC.
So without having the BSC, It will definitely be much harder to even configure such a BTS. Nokia/Siemens/Ericsson/ip.access are definitely simpler that way (not listing osmobts based BTSs here, as they obviously are easiest to set up).
--
- Harald Welte laforge@gnumonks.org http://laforge.gnumonks.org/
============================================================================ "Privacy in residential applications is a desirable marketing option." (ETSI EN 300 175-7 Ch. A6)
Hi Domi,
On Sat, Feb 13, 2021 at 01:44:23PM +0100, Tomcsanyi, Domonkos wrote:
Interesting to hear about an LMT not being present, because all Huawei products I encountered provided a usable WebUI via a local ethernet port. Of course I must disclose these were a lot newer products, mainly supporting LTE and NR, sometimes UMTS. MML scripting is also present on those for quicker configuration.
those were also likely macro base stations, right? Where you a) expect no physical access to the general public, b) have a dedicated Ethernet port for the "site LAN"
For femto / small cell products, you typically expect them to be in publicly accessible locations, where virtually anyone can get physical access. So the vendors lock them down considerably more, with no "site lan", enforced use of IPsec, etc.
Hi Harald,
100% correct indeed.
Kind regards, Domi
13.02.2021 dátummal, 14:30 időpontban Harald Welte laforge@gnumonks.org írta:
Hi Domi,
On Sat, Feb 13, 2021 at 01:44:23PM +0100, Tomcsanyi, Domonkos wrote: Interesting to hear about an LMT not being present, because all Huawei products I encountered provided a usable WebUI via a local ethernet port. Of course I must disclose these were a lot newer products, mainly supporting LTE and NR, sometimes UMTS. MML scripting is also present on those for quicker configuration.
those were also likely macro base stations, right? Where you a) expect no physical access to the general public, b) have a dedicated Ethernet port for the "site LAN"
For femto / small cell products, you typically expect them to be in publicly accessible locations, where virtually anyone can get physical access. So the vendors lock them down considerably more, with no "site lan", enforced use of IPsec, etc.
--
- Harald Welte laforge@gnumonks.org http://laforge.gnumonks.org/
============================================================================ "Privacy in residential applications is a desirable marketing option." (ETSI EN 300 175-7 Ch. A6)
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Harald Welte -
Harald Welte -
Saturn Rocket -
Tomcsanyi, Domonkos