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Introducing OpenCellular: An open source wireless access platform
- html5web 10y agoOne more step towards free internet!
- ysleepy 10y agoWow, this seems cool. Has there been any research into OpenBTS, Osmocom, OpenLTE ? This is really an opportunity for Facebook to show that they are serious with their efforts to bring Internet to developing regions. Especially with the delayed adoption of Cellular tech generations on the cellphone side, I think an open source Stack is the only way to go. If the networks are built using decommissioned tech from somewhere else, it will be brittle and won't be cost effective in the long run, especially considering energy consumption. The only missing part now is a baseband implementation with GSM/UMTS/(LTE) support.
- rsync 10y ago"This is really an opportunity for Facebook to show that they are serious with their efforts to bring Internet to developing regions." Facebook is not interested in bringing Internet to developing regions. Facebook is interested in bringing facebook to developing regions.
- throwanem 10y agoExactly. Just as Uber only hires human drivers as a means of bootstrapping to self-driving Teslas, Facebook only expands Internet access as a means of bootstrapping to more of itself.
- Swannie 10y agoExcept that Uber controls the relationship with the consumer. For Facebook, using open source to increase internet density is really just a PR stunt, as they won't own anything with the customer. That said, their WhatsApp investment is more relevant in the third world.
- vr3690 10y agoMaybe they learnt their lesson from the whole Free Basics debacle and are trying to bring low cost internet to developing areas. But that's just me being optimistic. Realistic me feels like they might just use this as another trojan horse to bring Facebook rather than the internet to more people.
- milcron 10y agoWell, we may as well extract what value we can from the opened code.
- evgen 10y agoI really hate to break this to you, but that is what they (those people in developing regions) actually want. You may think you know what they want, or perhaps you think you know what they should want, but traffic stats don't lie. For people who have limited or no connectivity this is a far better option than waiting around for someone to deliver ponies and rainbows that never seem to arrive. If you wanted to start spending your time and money shipping them the ponies you think they really want I wish you luck, but they will be quite happy to just use Facebook in the interim while waiting for your magic ponies...
- paavokoya 10y agoFast forward 20 years when the people of those regions are unable to create an open and free internet because Facebook holds the legal monopoly in many of those areas (think Comcast)
- html5web 10y agoTop players: https://telecominfraproject.com/members/ https://telecominfraproject.com/members/
- mdani 10y agoI am an individual member of TIP. You can join for free if interested. The project groups are forming right now so good time to get in.
- Johnythree 10y agoThe obvious question is "what about licensing"? The modules will need to pass EMC Compliance testing and be issued Compliance Certificates (expensive!). A suitable Cell frequency plan will need to be created, approved by the local government, and then (expensive!) Radio Licenses issued. Licensing as a Carrier and approval to connect with the local Telcom provider will need to be arranged, along with the (expensive!) registration fees. Then when you have it running you'll suddenly run into interference problems from all the unlicensed boxes already installed by well meaning NGO's and private organisations. Not to mention clashes with networks in neighboring countries. Bottom line: It's not as simple as just mounting radio box on a post and switching it on. Open Source phone towers are not a new concept. Has been already done in a number of third world and island states. But without government licensing and approval to back you up, a bunch of soldiers will arrive and simply rip out your gear. The above questions/comments are based on actual field experience in third world countries...
- petra 10y agoYou're right, but if this box is cheap enough, and we're talking about deploying 1 per village with natural spacial reuse, it's possible to see a political campaign allowing villages to install their own basestation on some empty bands. Also maybe it could work in a city, where neighborhoods join together to request a license from the city and the city will work with neighborhoods choosing suitable locations as to not interfere too much with each other. But of course it requires a political campaign and this might be a trigger to start that, with facebook also helping.
- Johnythree 10y agoThe lesson learned over and over in the West, is that any add-hock development of the spectrum results in huge future inefficiencies with large blocks of spectrum locked out of re-use due to poor planning in the early days. The temptation is to let companies use new frequencies wherever they want, but in the longer term this results in chaos, and the only solution is to rip it all up and start again (at huge cost and disruption to service). The only workable approach is to design an interlocking network of spacial and frequency allocations and then stick with it, and make sure that each block is fully utilised before moving on to a new block. With all of the above considerations, the cost of the actual network hardware is negligible, especially if the consequence is that poor villages will have to abandon their total investment in equipment at some arbitrary point in the future.
- 5ilv3r 10y agoNo code == no sale. I don't like the eventual promise of opensourceness. Just make it FOSS out the gate.
- cptskippy 10y agoWell the trouble with open-sourcing incomplete or very immature solutions out of the gate is that they'll get forked because people will see a need to fix what they see as fundamental flaws with an as yet unvetted or incomplete design. You'll also have people implement in production solutions based on the half-baked designs that may not be forward compatible with the ultimate 1.0 release. In either scenario you've fractured your community and diluted your effort. By announcing a solution before it's released you can attract the attention of SMEs who might evaluate the solution and provide valuable insights and offer you the opportunity to resolve concerns before users start adopting your solution.
- 5ilv3r 10y agoThat's more of an open source problem than a free software problem. I recognize the concern as valid in business, but ideally it would not be relevant.
- cptskippy 10y agoI'm not sure I understand how that distinction changes anything. You outright dismissed the project and any of it's potential merits on the grounds that it only promised to be FOSS eventually instead of initially. Ideals are great to have but you can't dismiss something of merit simply because it's less than ideal. Ideally all medicine would be free and open source but the fact that they're not doesn't mean we should be turning our backs on them.
- BinaryIdiot 10y agoConsidering it's not being sold this very second I'm not sure what your point is. The vast majority of open source products start out as closed sourced prototypes / research projects. Sure look at any negatives that the product may have and complain but complaining about a prototype not yet available that promises to be open source but hasn't opened sourced before being available just seems so crass and ultimately unhelpful in any respect.
- praveenster 10y agoThere seems to be a lot of negativity in this thread. So, I'll attempt to provide a positive spin. I think of this (and other open source hardware and software projects) similar to how I think of mathematic theorems or tools at Home Depot. These are good building blocks to learn, prototype and build. If you want to take it commercial, then you have to bear licensing costs etc. but it is a great way for hobbyists to build things on top of these blocks rather than start from scratch.
- throwanem 10y agoOne step closer to Facebook's second billion.
- devy 10y agoWhose frequency spectrum does OpenCellular use? I took a quick peak at Telecom Infra Project (TIP) members page, looks like T-Mobile is participating. So can we assume OpenCellular access points RF uses T-Mobile's spectrum?
- subway 10y agoI imagine that will be up to the individual operators. This is a hardware platform.
- kirkdouglas 10y agoWill they open hardware for this platform? If no, then it does not look very useful, just PR.
- ianlevesque 10y agoThey sure will! "Facebook plans to open-source the hardware design, along with necessary firmware and control software" Seems to be right in line with the open compute project.
- edent 10y agoWonder how they manage SIM distribution / authentication?
- jarmitage 10y agoDid anyone use the BRCK from Ushahidi? I think it had some similar goals and features. It would be interesting to compare these and see how Facebook have advanced the state-of-the-art. http://www.brck.com/ http://www.brck.com/
- mdani 10y agoThese are two different things. BRCK == A rugged WiFi hotspot that uses cellular data as a back haul to provide WiFi connectivity up to 20 devices Facebook TIP == A base station that provides LTE connectivity to handsets. So with Facebook device, you'll be able to set up your own LTE network and be a mobile operator whereas BRCK has no such capability.
- bikamonki 10y agoOpen and Facebook is an oxymoron
- CaptSpify 10y agoI hate facebook as much as anyone, but they do put out a lot of open software.
- bikamonki 10y agoOk, let me switch off sarcasm and put it differently: Facebook is to OpenCellular what Google is to Android: they do not really care for the disconnected, they just want a bigger market and are willing to invest in infra rather than waiting for telcos to do it.
- sudoroomAcorn 10y agoFacebook + politics = ultraViolence/Fascism
- throw42 10y agoThis is just amazing stuff. With this, Facebook is going to revolutionize telecom in developing countries. Villagers will be able to get together and run 'bandit' networks and provide coverage to all. Laws dont apply much to startups like facebook and Airbnb, and liability is definitely not on FB. Amazing. Just Amazing work from Facebook.
- RachelF 10y agoInteresting project. No mention of what can be used as the backhaul, though. How do these boxes connect to the rest of the Internet or public phone network?
- Johnythree 10y agoThe more that I think about this, the crazier it seems: The argument seems to be that the cost of phone base stations is holding back development in 3rd world countries, but no evidence for this is offered. Firstly, the world-wide mobile phone market is huge and fiercely competitive. You can now buy a 2G Chinese base station surprisingly cheaply. Secondly, there are thousands of tons of secondhand gear lying idle. An example: Australia is about to rip out all of its 2G network. This will mean umpteen thousands of GSM/GPRS base stations being dumped for scrap. Thirdly, the cost of the radio gear is a small part of the total cost of a base station. The cost of the Shed, Power Supply, Solar Panels and Batteries, Mast and footings, Coax, Diplexers, Antennas, etc, will be far more. Just the expense of running power to the top of the hill will likely exceed that of the electronics. But the big cost will be extending a dozen or so outside lines to the national telephone network. Just setting up the billing arrangements, etc, will be a huge job. The bit that really worries me would be staffing. I can imaging a bunch of enthusiastic western hobbyists turning up to install the gear, then departing leaving no-one to maintain it. I'm betting that after a week or three the whole system will be down. But lastly is the assumption that the locals can't do all this. In any remote community there will be skilled local entrepreneurs who are selling and repairing electronic equipment. It is these people who need to be the ones who install a phone system. If they haven't yet, it will not be because of lack of cheap gear, but because of the non-existence of basic infrastructure, eg a national phone network to connect to. And you can be sure that if there is no local phone tower, there will already be a VHF mobile radio network used by police and businessmen (eg the "red radio" VHF CBs in remote Thailand).
- grandalf 10y ago> The argument seems to be that the cost of phone base stations is holding back development in 3rd world countries I'd say not quite: Since most of the first world dollars go into cutting edge technology, there is low-hanging fruit in the now-miniaturized, super-inexpensive chips that make it orders of magnitude cheaper/simpler to create reliable 2G infrastructure. So much cheaper that using second hand gear is not a better option at scale. > You can now buy a 2G Chinese base station surprisingly cheaply. I imagine FB engineered its own version of similar technology, but with a product focus that is aligned with the company's goals. > Just the expense of running power to the top of the hill It seems to be designed to be mounted on a building, so I'm guessing it's not intended to replace a massive tower installation, but instead to offer a very cheap and useful, easy-to-install access point that happens to do 2G in addition to (or instead of) wifi. > Just setting up the billing arrangements, etc, will be a huge job. Since the users are the product, I think it will likely be free to the end user, at least at first. > but because of the non-existence of basic infrastructure, eg a national phone network to connect to. I think FB has plans to offer bandwidth, both as a carrot to convince local regulators to license it, and also to incentivize various service providers to help with the rollout. Of course, this could this could be a feint: http://vita.mcafee.cc/PDF/feint.pdf http://vita.mcafee.cc/PDF/feint.pdf