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Can someone explain the use case for this project? Is it intended for device vendors creating phones and tablets or for telecom companies building their own in

by maxloh 2y ago

Can someone explain the use case for this project? Is it intended for device vendors creating phones and tablets or for telecom companies building their own infrastructures?

wmf 2y ago
This is the tower side (RAN) not the phone side (UE). It's not clear who the audience is. I assume it's equipment vendors since running a real carrier on USRPs seems janky.
- femto 2y ago
  srsRAN is both. It includes the source for user equipment in its "srsue" directory. Use cases are partly captured by the list of customers across the bottom of the srsRAN home page (https://www.srsran.com/ https://www.srsran.com/). It's great for any company/research group smaller than a multinational base station manufacturer, at which size the big players don't want to talk to you.
- nine_k 2y ago
  A few applications I could think of: - Testing of various kinds. You can get deep inside an OSS base station, inspect and debug things, but likely may not even look at the proprietary innards of a commercial BS. - Emergency connectivity when the backbone is broken, or did not exist. Most people would bring mobile phones anyway. - Study / teaching, like MINIX OS or trainer aircraft which you can take apart and inspect. - Maybe very small local cells to improve connectivity in difficult landscapes (mountains, skyscrapers, underground).
  - vardump 2y ago
    > look at the proprietary innards of a commercial BS. I was wondering a bit whether that means Base Station or perhaps something else...
  - emilamlom 2y ago
    > Maybe very small local cells to improve connectivity in difficult landscapes (mountains, skyscrapers, underground) Something like this would've been useful in a couple remote networks that I worked on. Internet was easy to get with some ubiquiti wifi routers and antennae. Getting cell reception was a pain in the ass that involved setting up a repeater in the one spot of the valley where reception was kinda okay. I haven't looked into the project too much, but I imagine I could set it up to connect to a telcom tower and handle the wireless backhaul similarly to how I did the wifi. Edit: An open implementation like this could lead to cheaper cells for large, concrete/metal buildings that typically have terrible reception.
    - wmf 2y ago
      Femtocell equipment exists; the real issue is whether any of your local carriers support it.
1oooqooq 2y ago
ccc camp et al always have a 3G tower built on the older version of this. I'm no radio person but it's awesome to get a conf sim card and hack away
kurokawad 2y ago
Cellular comms. are all complex, proprietary, closed standards by big telecoms companies. There are some projects trying to solve this: OpenRAN, OpenAirInterface, O-RAN Alliance. This project tries to build an open solution following O-RAN standards for RAN software. It is targeting telecom. companies for their Radio Access Network (RAN). Their infrastructure is divided into the Core Network (like a simple internet network) and the Radio Access Network (base stations, antennas and all that stuff). Phones and tablets are User Equipment (UE), nothing to do with srsRAN.
- leidenfrost 2y ago
  Why can't I create an ad hoc 4/5g network between phones? Genuine question. It looks so closed and complex compared to more traditional comms like wifi or even ethernet.
  - femto 2y ago
    The LTE protocol is asymmetric between towers (eNodeB) and phones (UE). You could build srsRAN and run a local eNodeB instance to form a local LTE network. Given that it has a radio that operates in the LTE bands, in theory you might be able to build srsRAN for a phone and run the necessary base station software (eNodeB and EPC) on a phone to form an "ad hoc" network. It wouldn't be truly ad hoc in that the network would still have a base station, just that it would be running on phone hardware. srsRAN wouldn't be running as an application, but would be replacing the firmware in the phone's LTE modem. Edit: Here is a paper by someone who has built an ad hoc LTE network. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1802.09262 https://arxiv.org/pdf/1802.09262 It does exactly the above: using srsRAN (which used to be called srsLTE) to run local base station software (eNodeB+EPC) to get around the asymmetry in the LTE protocol.
  - bsder 2y ago
    > Why can't I create an ad hoc 4/5g network between phones? Because billing. All the complexity in cellular can be traced back to making the system secure the whole way back to SIM cards because there is actual money at stake if the system gets cracked.

by maxloh 2y ago

Can someone explain the use case for this project? Is it intended for device vendors creating phones and tablets or for telecom companies building their own infrastructures?

wmf 2y ago

This is the tower side (RAN) not the phone side (UE). It's not clear who the audience is. I assume it's equipment vendors since running a real carrier on USRPs seems janky.

femto 2y ago
srsRAN is both. It includes the source for user equipment in its "srsue" directory. Use cases are partly captured by the list of customers across the bottom of the srsRAN home page (https://www.srsran.com/ https://www.srsran.com/). It's great for any company/research group smaller than a multinational base station manufacturer, at which size the big players don't want to talk to you.
nine_k 2y ago
A few applications I could think of: - Testing of various kinds. You can get deep inside an OSS base station, inspect and debug things, but likely may not even look at the proprietary innards of a commercial BS. - Emergency connectivity when the backbone is broken, or did not exist. Most people would bring mobile phones anyway. - Study / teaching, like MINIX OS or trainer aircraft which you can take apart and inspect. - Maybe very small local cells to improve connectivity in difficult landscapes (mountains, skyscrapers, underground).
- vardump 2y ago
  > look at the proprietary innards of a commercial BS. I was wondering a bit whether that means Base Station or perhaps something else...
- emilamlom 2y ago
  > Maybe very small local cells to improve connectivity in difficult landscapes (mountains, skyscrapers, underground) Something like this would've been useful in a couple remote networks that I worked on. Internet was easy to get with some ubiquiti wifi routers and antennae. Getting cell reception was a pain in the ass that involved setting up a repeater in the one spot of the valley where reception was kinda okay. I haven't looked into the project too much, but I imagine I could set it up to connect to a telcom tower and handle the wireless backhaul similarly to how I did the wifi. Edit: An open implementation like this could lead to cheaper cells for large, concrete/metal buildings that typically have terrible reception.
  - wmf 2y ago
    Femtocell equipment exists; the real issue is whether any of your local carriers support it.

1oooqooq 2y ago

ccc camp et al always have a 3G tower built on the older version of this. I'm no radio person but it's awesome to get a conf sim card and hack away

kurokawad 2y ago

Cellular comms. are all complex, proprietary, closed standards by big telecoms companies. There are some projects trying to solve this: OpenRAN, OpenAirInterface, O-RAN Alliance. This project tries to build an open solution following O-RAN standards for RAN software. It is targeting telecom. companies for their Radio Access Network (RAN). Their infrastructure is divided into the Core Network (like a simple internet network) and the Radio Access Network (base stations, antennas and all that stuff). Phones and tablets are User Equipment (UE), nothing to do with srsRAN.

leidenfrost 2y ago
Why can't I create an ad hoc 4/5g network between phones? Genuine question. It looks so closed and complex compared to more traditional comms like wifi or even ethernet.
- femto 2y ago
  The LTE protocol is asymmetric between towers (eNodeB) and phones (UE). You could build srsRAN and run a local eNodeB instance to form a local LTE network. Given that it has a radio that operates in the LTE bands, in theory you might be able to build srsRAN for a phone and run the necessary base station software (eNodeB and EPC) on a phone to form an "ad hoc" network. It wouldn't be truly ad hoc in that the network would still have a base station, just that it would be running on phone hardware. srsRAN wouldn't be running as an application, but would be replacing the firmware in the phone's LTE modem. Edit: Here is a paper by someone who has built an ad hoc LTE network. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1802.09262 https://arxiv.org/pdf/1802.09262 It does exactly the above: using srsRAN (which used to be called srsLTE) to run local base station software (eNodeB+EPC) to get around the asymmetry in the LTE protocol.
- bsder 2y ago
  > Why can't I create an ad hoc 4/5g network between phones? Because billing. All the complexity in cellular can be traced back to making the system secure the whole way back to SIM cards because there is actual money at stake if the system gets cracked.