OpenBTS and femtocells

[tomcatsniper]

Hello,

I found the opensource project OpenBTS and the USRP hardware used for this. I found it to be very interesting but quite expensive the start to get the hardware, USRP + radio modules.

My question is: Does anybody tried to use modded femtocells to attach them to OpenBTS? The price is much lower than USRP hardware.

I saw that the femtocells from Vodafone/ATT/Telefonica can be modified and you can get the root access.

Check this link for info:
http://wiki.thc.org/vodafone

and this one for software on that femtocell:
https://forge.betavine.net/svn/voda-femtocell/

[coursekec]

thanks for the useful stuffs..

[tomcatsniper]

I was wondering if someone tried to integrate a femtocell from any of the main providers with OpenBTS.

We can learn a lot of stuff from this. Imagine your private BTS at home.

BTW: There is also a project OpenBSC :-)

http://openbsc.osmocom.org/trac/wiki/OpenBSC

I cannot find the link where one guy tested it with a Siemens BTS and the test was successful.

I need more data about femtocells, hardware, software doesn't matter.

Cheers!

[laforge]

I think you have some misunderstanding.

First of all OpenBTS is strictly 2G and all the commercially deployed femtocells that I've seen are either 3G or 3.5G. So they operate using a completely diffrent radio standard in a different radio band (1.8G vs. 2.1G).

Also, OpenBTS implements the BTS itself. So you cannot 'attach' a femtocell to it. You could _build_ a 2G femtocell using OpenBTS, but you cannot attach others to it.

You may want to have a look at OpenBSC (http://openbsc.osmocom.org/) - An Open Source BSC (and if you want MSC/HLR/VLR simulation). Using OpenBSC, you can connect existing BTS and create a small GSM network.

However, like OpenBTS, OpenBSC is strictly 2G only.

There are some people experimenting with implementing RANAP and building a HNB-GW (HomeNodeB - gateway) compatible with existing femtocells, but nothing about this is public yet.

Regards,
LaForge

[croleg]

OpenBTS in focus
http://www.4shared.com/document/_7LxyIFx/openBTS.html