5 ms·

I thought cell phone companies don't appear from nowhere because governments and/or organizations like FCC in the USA are not allowing just anyone to sell radio

by listic 11y ago

I thought cell phone companies don't appear from nowhere because governments and/or organizations like FCC in the USA are not allowing just anyone to sell radio communication equipment (is that why cellular modems are never open sourced, right?) Is it because of the regulations that we don't see lots of cell phone manufacturers? If it wasn't for that, from this presentation I get the feeling that cellphones could be made to spec quite easily, say, by your regular hardware Kickstarter campaign: at least, the cellular modem shown in the presentation looks really self-contained.

voltagex_ 11y ago
From memory your phone OS just talks to the baseband through AT commands, they're separate.
posborne 11y ago
I work for a wireless design services company. There is a large divide between using a Cellular module (e.g. Telit LE910) versus doing a chip-down Cellular design (e.g. Qualcomm/Infineon). This design has a module at its core. Modules are based around the chipsets but they do the most expensive certification (both FCC and Carrier) work for you. As a purchaser of the module, you pay for this on each module. Certifying a cellular end device is usually <$50K (depending on number of bands, # of carriers, fallback, etc.). Certifying a new chip-down cellular design can easily exceed $1-2M in just certification and testing costs. Development costs and complexity will also be increased.
- nmrm2 11y ago
  > Certifying a cellular end device is usually <$50K Suppose the author wants to (completely legally) use the phone he just built. Does he have to go through this "end device" certification? Or does "end device" mean something else here? what if he wanted to sell the phone? I was wondering what the regulatory landscape looks like during the last portion of the talk -- it'd be a real shame if he put all this time into designing a beautiful phone and couldn't (legally) use it!
  - pmorici 11y ago
    Sparkfun has a reasonable run down of FCC rules. https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/398 https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/398 In this guys case there is an FCC allowance that you can build up to five devices for personal use that this cellphone project might fall under. Building a bunch to sell is a different matter though, especially since this is an intentional radiator vs. a unintentional one. I get the sense that it's a bit of a taboo topic to talk about publicly in the opensource / hobbyist world. Adafruit and Sparkfun, the two major outlets for hobby electronics in the USA, for example generally won't discuss publicly what the companies stance on their FCC rules compliance obligation is. My feeling based on reading a bit about it is that until you reach a certain scale the cost of FCC testing is prohibitive. So when companies like Sparkfun and Adafruit were starting out they simply followed best design practices and fudged a little on the FCC side of things by saying that their products fell under one of the exceptions or that they use a pre-certified module. Now that they are bigger it seems a small number of their products actually do get certified. It's a mess for sure.
superuser2 11y ago
The FCC requires that RF transmitters behave cooperatively - using the correct parts of the spectrum, not producing interference on other parts. Verifying this behavior is a relatively sophisticated task of electrical engineering, requiring specialized knowledge, expensive calibrated measurement equipment, RF-isolated test facilities, etc. Naturally, the cost burden for this testing falls on the manufacturer, not the taxpayer. So... we do allow "just anyone" to sell radio equipment, as long as they can pay to prove it behaves within the limits of the law. But big players like Motorola are in a much better position to do this than a dude in his basement. Carriers have paid big bucks for exclusive licenses to useful swaths of the spectrum, and in return they get enforcement to make sure only devices they control can transmit on their spectrum. The FCC would not license a radio capable of transmitting on Verizon spectrum not approved by Verizon. But this is specific to the radio - the FCC doesn't care about the rest of the phone (or whatever device it is). You can buy a cellular radio chip for your Arduino because it is FCC certified and you can only provide inputs like SMS and audio, not an arbitrary signal to transmit.

by listic 11y ago

voltagex_ 11y ago

From memory your phone OS just talks to the baseband through AT commands, they're separate.

posborne 11y ago

I work for a wireless design services company. There is a large divide between using a Cellular module (e.g. Telit LE910) versus doing a chip-down Cellular design (e.g. Qualcomm/Infineon). This design has a module at its core. Modules are based around the chipsets but they do the most expensive certification (both FCC and Carrier) work for you. As a purchaser of the module, you pay for this on each module. Certifying a cellular end device is usually <$50K (depending on number of bands, # of carriers, fallback, etc.). Certifying a new chip-down cellular design can easily exceed $1-2M in just certification and testing costs. Development costs and complexity will also be increased.

nmrm2 11y ago
> Certifying a cellular end device is usually <$50K Suppose the author wants to (completely legally) use the phone he just built. Does he have to go through this "end device" certification? Or does "end device" mean something else here? what if he wanted to sell the phone? I was wondering what the regulatory landscape looks like during the last portion of the talk -- it'd be a real shame if he put all this time into designing a beautiful phone and couldn't (legally) use it!
- pmorici 11y ago
  Sparkfun has a reasonable run down of FCC rules. https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/398 https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/398 In this guys case there is an FCC allowance that you can build up to five devices for personal use that this cellphone project might fall under. Building a bunch to sell is a different matter though, especially since this is an intentional radiator vs. a unintentional one. I get the sense that it's a bit of a taboo topic to talk about publicly in the opensource / hobbyist world. Adafruit and Sparkfun, the two major outlets for hobby electronics in the USA, for example generally won't discuss publicly what the companies stance on their FCC rules compliance obligation is. My feeling based on reading a bit about it is that until you reach a certain scale the cost of FCC testing is prohibitive. So when companies like Sparkfun and Adafruit were starting out they simply followed best design practices and fudged a little on the FCC side of things by saying that their products fell under one of the exceptions or that they use a pre-certified module. Now that they are bigger it seems a small number of their products actually do get certified. It's a mess for sure.

superuser2 11y ago

The FCC requires that RF transmitters behave cooperatively - using the correct parts of the spectrum, not producing interference on other parts. Verifying this behavior is a relatively sophisticated task of electrical engineering, requiring specialized knowledge, expensive calibrated measurement equipment, RF-isolated test facilities, etc. Naturally, the cost burden for this testing falls on the manufacturer, not the taxpayer. So... we do allow "just anyone" to sell radio equipment, as long as they can pay to prove it behaves within the limits of the law. But big players like Motorola are in a much better position to do this than a dude in his basement. Carriers have paid big bucks for exclusive licenses to useful swaths of the spectrum, and in return they get enforcement to make sure only devices they control can transmit on their spectrum. The FCC would not license a radio capable of transmitting on Verizon spectrum not approved by Verizon. But this is specific to the radio - the FCC doesn't care about the rest of the phone (or whatever device it is). You can buy a cellular radio chip for your Arduino because it is FCC certified and you can only provide inputs like SMS and audio, not an arbitrary signal to transmit.