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Serg l serg at tvman.usHi Mychaela, You brought up a tricky subject and I definitely would be interested to hear some feedback from someone who dealt with various government bodies in different countries. Website hosting is the easy part :) Thanks, -Serg On Tue, May 9, 2017 at 11:37 AM, Mychaela Falconia < mychaela.falconia at gmail.com> wrote: > Hello FreeCalypso and Osmocom communities, > > I am in the process of creating an informal organisation representing > the interests of those members of the GSM universe whose interests are > not represented by GSMA etc, and I am inviting you to join me in this > venture. I propose that we name our informal organisation GSMUA, > standing for GSM Users Association, and my vision for this GSMUA is to > be a counter-body (antibody?) to the official GSMA. I just registered > the gsmua.org domain name, but there is no website or mailing list set > up yet. If someone from the Osmocom camp would like to host the > server infrastructure for gsmua.org, I will happily point the DNS to > you, otherwise the FreeCalypso family can host it on our server. > > My vision for GSMUA is to represent the interests of GSM end users > (empowered end users who wish to fully own and control all aspects of > their user equipment while operating on public mobile networks in a > fully spec-compliant manner), small boutique manufacturers of GSM > devices (both MS/user equipment and network infrastructure), small > community network operators and others whose interests are not > represented by GSMA etc, especially in cases where our interests are > in direct conflict with the interests of big players such as giant > device manufacturers, giant commercial network operators and > governments. > > A key goal of GSMUA is to be project-neutral, that is, every person > and every small company belonging to any of the categories listed > above (empowered end user, small boutique device manufacturer, small > community network operator etc) should be fully welcome regardless of > which specific project they are associated with. As of today there > are at least two different projects offering GSM MS implementations > (OsmocomBB and FreeCalypso) and at least two different projects > offering network-side GSM implementations (Osmocom and OpenBTS), and I > hope that this number of available alternatives will continue to grow: > freedom of choice is always a good thing. But at the present time > there exists no neutral soil on which members of different projects > with a common interest (GSM networks and devices serving the interests > of end users rather than big corporations and governments) and a > common enemy (just named) can meet, and this lack of neutral meeting > ground is the problem which GSMUA is meant to solve. > > I also have one practical application for GSMUA in mind already: to > manage and legitimize recycling of wasted IMEI number ranges. By the > official rules of GSMA etc each different *type* of GSM mobile > equipment requires a different TAC, i.e., a range of at least 1 million > IMEI numbers. So if a small boutique GSM device manufacturer makes a > boutique MS device of which no more than 100 units will ever be made, > 999900 IMEI numbers have to be wasted by the official rules. While I > don't know of any manufacturer who got a range of 1 million IMEIs and > only made 100 devices, we do have examples like Openmoko GTA01/02 and > Pirelli DP-L10. In the case of Openmoko GTA02 I've been told that > about 15 thousand units were made in total; in the case of Pirelli > DP-L10 it appears that the total number produced was somewhere under > 100 thousand. In each case a full range of 1 million IMEIs was > allocated, and at least 900 thousand numbers out of each range are > currently unused and wasted. > > If a small boutique manufacturer wishes to offer a boutique GSM MS > product to the general public and wishes to ship each unit with a > world-unique IMEI that stands a good chance of being accepted as valid > by common GSM networks, and the product in question does not qualify > for IMEI allocation by the official rules (e.g., the product is a > development board specifically intended for users to run their own > firmware and connect to live public networks with it, taking full > personal responsibility for their actions) - the situation I found > myself in with my GSM MS development board - I feel that the small > boutique manuf in question should be empowered to squat on a small > subrange of someone else's IMEI range if it is known beyond reasonable > doubt to be wasted and unused. > > However, this recycling of wasted IMEI number ranges could be better > organized and given at least some aura of semi-legitimacy if there > were a community body set up to manage it, and this is where my > proposed GSMUA can come in. Once we get our GSMUA up and running and > assign a group of volunteers to be IMEI recycling managers, any small > GSM or 3G+ device manufacturer who needs a small range of IMEI numbers > will be able to request one from GSMUA, and we will allocate and > assign these small subranges out of whatever wasted range we decide to > squat on, ensuring that each requestor gets a different subrange. > > So these are my ideas, and I would like to see them turn into reality. > We are going to need a simple website and a community mailing list at > gsmua.org, and for the IMEI recycling service we will need a small > group of volunteers to serve as its managers - I and Das Signal from > FreeCalypso will be happy to serve on that panel, but it would be nice > to also have someone from the Osmocom camp for better neutrality. > > Bright Blessings, > Mychaela Falconia, > Mother of FreeCalypso > _______________________________________________ > Community mailing list > Community at freecalypso.org > https://www.freecalypso.org/mailman/listinfo/community > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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