GSM network at 28C3

historical

Hi all,

I wanted to write this mail earlier, but somehow didn't get around to.

MAny people have been assuming that there again will be a  GSM network
at the 28C3 conference in late december.  However, given the large
amount of work that was involved in the GSM network at the camp this
summer, I have decided that I want to pull out a bit of this network
operation.

This means that I hope there will be some other project members that
will step up to make it happen again.

I've already applied for the regulatory license some 4 weeks ago (no
response yet, but I doubt there will be any problems).  So that should
be OK (6 ARFCN, GSM 1800, 200mW each, indoor).

The BTSs have always come from a quite large number of individuals and
companies, and I'm sure we will be able to pool them together again.
Whoever is able to provide a GSM1800 nanoBTS during the event should
probably add themselves (and the number of BTS) to the following wiki
page: http://openbsc.osmocom.org/trac/wiki/FieldTests/28c3

The BTSs will have to be available from at least 23rd of december to
31st december.  Likely they'll be unmounted on 30th night, but nobody
can guarantee that.

What needs to be done:

* BTS physical installation, patching + PoE
  This is typically done on dec 24 or 25, depends a bit when roh is
  doing the patching and when the house technicians lift up the big
  cross beam in the main hall

* configuring osmo-nitb + LCR to connect with the POC, do some testing
  This again involves getting some physical E1 line from/to the PoC
  patched, and when the POC is available for configuring their side of
  the link

* programming of SIM cards
  we have some 100 to 150 left-over 16in1 sim cards from the camp, but
  sysmocom will soon receive 1000 sysmoSIM' cards.  Those cards store
  only one IMSI (not 16), but are otherwise much more flexible in terms
  of programming.  You can create any file (DF/EF) and put any content
  inside, even files not specified in TS 11.11.
  The cards will need to be programmed (simple, quick).  sysmocom will
  take care they are of that.

* selling of SIM cards
  In the past, this has been done by the POC.  However, there has been
  some discontempt with the fact that they get all the user questions
  and cannot do anything regarding GSM, and also they never got any
  share of the money (not that we made huge profits on it anyway).

  So I'd suggest to involve the POC more in the network, give them
  telnet access to the BSC so they can try to anlyze problems
  themselves, and maybe see if (at least in the beginning) one of the
  OpenBSC project members could spend some time at the POC desk to help
  with SIM card sales and user questions

* putting together a publik wiki page (mostly copy+paste from last year)

* Testing of newer BTSs.  Both Fairwaves as well as sysmocom are
  develoing some new BTSs.  We probably don't want them operational
  during all of the event, the network should run on nanoBTS.  But
  when we feel like doing a test, we will shut down one nanoBTS and
  start up one of the new BTS models and check for bugs / performance.

All in all, I will not be gone completely from the even GSM network but
still be around and willing to help if some nasty problem needs to be
debugged.

And thanks at this point for the kind help of Peter Stuge and Khorben
for helping with GSM @ the camp, as well as the POC for the SIM card
sales in past years!

[please make sure to keep the Cc list of this mail, as I don't think the
 POC guys are on the openbsc list...]

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