
Raspberry Pi Used to Replace 30-Foot GSM Base Station and Create Mobile Network - iProject
http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/21/raspberry-pi-used-to-replace-a-30-foot-gsm-base-station-and-create-a-working-mobile-network/
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blhack
Does the author of this article believe that computing power is measured in
feet?

Seeing some of the hype of raspi is kindof sad. It's a linux box. It's a
small, cheap linux box, but it's just a linux box.

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6ren
To be fair, process shrinks, the driving force of computing power, are
measured as lengths e.g. 32nm.

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jws
Let's all find that headline writer and beat him senseless. That will send a
message.

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jQueryIsAwesome
He is really bad at titles[0] and he also seems to publishing one article
every 3 hours. Journalism surely has changed.

[0][http://m.techcrunch.com/bloggers/darrell-
etherington?icid=tc...](http://m.techcrunch.com/bloggers/darrell-
etherington?icid=tc_art_author)

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steauengeglase
I fail to understand the point to this. People have been building GSM base
stations with $1,500 USRPs for years (not knocking the USRP, awesome piece of
test equipment; it has been on my wish list for years now). So someone tacked
a $35 Raspberry Pi to it.

Now turning a Raspberry Pi into a USRP for $35, that would be disruptive.

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rom16384
You probably know this already, but you can use a cheap DVB-T usb dongle with
a RTL2832U chipset to do a lot of things that used to require an USRP [1]. You
can't transmit though.

[1] <http://www.reddit.com/r/RTLSDR>

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stereo
Which is, unfortunately, a pretty big prerequisite for a GSM station.
Raspberry Pi + DVB stick is a great combination for reception though, I've
seen it used on autonomous model planes.

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tron_carter
So they are using a DVB stick to broadcast the video stream back to monitor
the autonomous model airplane, which is awesome. I tried looking for a site
where hobbyists are doing this without luck. Can you link to a site where I
can learn more about this specific use case?

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akavel
I have worked for a moment in company writing some GSM infrastructure sofware,
and my first thought after reading the article is that it neglects the fact,
that nodes of mobile network are expected to pass broad and comprehensive
reliability tests (both the software and the hardware). That, I'd say, can
make a ton of a difference, compared to a simple proof-of-concept.

On the other hand, any proof-of-concept is always welcome, interesting, and
can lead to new great developments.

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wmf
I think having the "I'm paying a million dollars for certification?"
conversation is a step up from the old days of enterprise or carrier equipment
where they'd essentially say "It costs a million dollars. Take it or leave
it." Projects like Asterisk and OpenBTS have revealed that there's not as much
magic there as people thought.

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Swannie
IIRC OpenBTS was developed by a small group of GSM software experts, with many
years GSM experience between them, and GSM essentially being a frozen standard
now.

Still an achievement, sure... makes me wonder why pico cells aren't everywhere
offering an alternative carrier. (Guess WiFi stayed good enough, and we have
moved to over the top apps that don't need cell network).

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gnaffle
Isn't the reason mostly that the spectrum is licensed? So the only ones that
can actually set up a picocell are the ones that own spectrum, and they don't
have a good reason to do so (except in remote areas / on boats).

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ivix
A pretty obvious PR stunt. Kind of cool as a hobby project but this isn't any
kind of technical advance.

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Rovanion
With performance and reliability measured in feet and inches this says
absolutely nothing and is nothing more than a PR stunt.

