MobileActive.org recently had the opportunity to test an off-the-grid GSM base station. Kurtis Heimerl presented The Village Base Station (VBTS), (link is a PDF) a low-power means of providing mobile network service without grid power or network infrastructure.
Below, Heimerl demonstrates the basic workings of a GSM networks and OpenBTS, an open-source platform that allows one to set up a cellular network at a fraction of the cost of a GSM network. Heimerl shows how phones find their base towers and settle on a frequency, and how OpenBTS condenses that process into a lower-powered, cheaper network.
The Village Base Station is built around voice and low-bandwidth data transmissions. It is an economical solution for rural residents who are outside of typical network coverage or power access, or for people living in situations where network outages occur. In a white paper presenting the VBTS, Heimerl and co-author Eric Brewer describe the project as, "essentially an outdoor PC with a software-defined radio that implements a low-power low-capacity GSM base station. Long-distance WiFi provides 'backhaul' into the carrier." Below are images of elements of the Village Base Station and screenshots from our 'hackday' in a large American city when we demo'ed VBTS with Heimerl. (Warning: If you try this at home, be aware of your local regulator's potential licensing and other restrictions for setting up such network/connecting to it)
[This post was written by Robert Goodier and originally appeared on Engineering for Change. It is reposted here with permission.]
Three men who believe that cellphone service should be cheap and accessible to everyone have found a way to make it happen. The creators of OpenBTS, the open-source cellphone network, launched a startup and have delivered cheap cellphone networks to the world's biggest mobile tech corporations, governments and other clients on every continent. (Yes, even Atarctica—the Australian base is connected via OpenBTS.)
As we reported last year, OpenBTS is a network built on open-source software and hardware that works seamlessly with the average cellphone. With smart coding and decentralized call processing, the system has reduced the hardware needed and cuts the cost of installing and running a cellphone network to about one-tenth that of a traditional setup.
And, importantly for developing countries, the base tranceivers (the gear in the cell towers) are energy sippers that can run on PV cells. The bottom line: The whole network can reduce the cost of service to about $2-3 per month for subscribers.
We spoke with Glenn Edens, a co-founder of Range Networks, with a resume that includes such titles as former head of Sun Lab at Sun Microsystems, former president of AT&T Strategic Ventures, Chief of Strategic Technology at Hewlett-Packard and others. Edens summed up the last six months at Range Networks and told us what lies ahead for the startup.
