

Burning Man's open source cell phone system could help save the world - mcantelon
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/083010-open-source-voip-cell-phones-at-burning-man.html?hpg1=bn

======
sbierwagen
"Save the world"? Seriously?

The key paragraph:

    
    
        A full‐power base station with software costs around 
        $10,000. Compare that to the typical $50,000 - $100,000 
        investment for base station controllers, mobile 
        switching centers and "a whole lot of plumbing" to 
        bring in power, backhaul, etc., in a traditional 
        cellular network. 
    

So it's a base station that's a fifth as expensive as a regular base station.

And since there's no BoM, we don't know if that ten thousand dollar number
includes solar panels to power the thing, or wireless backhaul to network the
base stations together.

Don't forget that it runs on licensed frequencies, so you have to pay your
local radio licensing agency to use it. It's not like a wifi router, which you
can just buy and turn it on out of the box. It doesn't matter if it's open
source if you can't use it without breaking the law.

Really, the only amazing thing here is how they got Network World to run such
a blatant puff piece about such a fundamentally unexciting product.

~~~
indrax
If the price came down a lot, you could do this with a home base station.
Still illegal, but I think unlikely to be noticed. I am not a cellular
engineer.

Likewise, anything out in the middle of nowhere like burning man could
probably do this covertly.

Governments in other nations might view this in an entirely different way:
cheap infrastructure.

Plus, this is a great example when arguing for opening up these frequencies a
bit here.

~~~
mattmillr
Wasn't there an article posted here last week about hackers using this same
software stack to spoof towers and intercept calls with about $1500 in gear?

~~~
mctavjb9
Are you referring to Chris Paget's demo at DEFCON at the end of July?

OpenBTS can in fact be used for nefarious purposes (or to demonstrate the
intrinsic insecurity of the GSM standard). It could also in principle be used
by law enforcement agencies to track criminals.

------
patrickaljord
Looks amazing, direct links to the project and blog:

* <http://openbts.sourceforge.net/>

* <http://openbts.blogspot.com/>

------
kiba
Now, let network all the hackerspace together, and then network all the
members of the hackerspace together and so on. Than you have a pretty awesome
cellular network, maybe with free internet built in.

Of course, it would probably cost 30 bucks up-front to set one up for your
house.

Can this be done or is it somehow unfeasible?

~~~
sigstoat
the FCC and similar organizations will frown upon you using the GSM bands
without permission.

as will the millions of paying GSM customers, whose service you'd be
interfering with.

------
spot
when i posted a link to their wiki last week nobody even noticed. harumph.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1636330>

------
chopsueyar
This makes used GSM phones more valuable.

------
joshu
I hooked my phone to this system a few years ago at a conference. The unicode
in the cell name made my blackberry sad...

