Different protocols

[Seungju Kim]

On Jul 18, 2011, at 3:43 AM, Harald Welte <laforge at gnumonks.org> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 08:52:37PM +0900, Seungju Kim wrote:
>> I see that pretty much every vendor in GSM industry uses their own
>> dialect in their core network products, I wonder why. What do they
>> achieve from it while killing compatibility with other products from
>> other companies?
> 
> It's pretty simple: They ensure the operator is in a "vendor lock-in"
> and thus has to buy all equipment from the same vendor.
> 
> Thus, there is no real competition and the original "mix and match" idea
> as defined in the GSM specs is rendered void.
> 
> As an equipment supplier, you can then extort a lot of money from the
> operator, since switching from one supplier to another and replacing
> equipment is an expensive proposition.
> 
> What I'm personally surprised though is why nobody hires people (like us)
> to develop translators / gateways between those dialects.  That's
> probably a hell lot cheaper than replacing your core network from one
> vendor with another vendor...

I think it is because of the user agreement, I do not think that mobile operators are allowed to trace the dialects. Have you heard of a game Starcraft? Its end user agreement says that users must not sniff packets nor make gateways that mimics their protocols. Of course source modifications are not allowed either. I think there are such agreement between mobile operators and equipment suppliers about which we do not know much. That also could be another reason why used network equipments are so hard to get.

> Regards,
> 
> -- 
> - Harald Welte <laforge at gnumonks.org>           http://laforge.gnumonks.org/
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