Osmocom Cellular Network Infrastructure

Re:Osmocom Cellular Network Infrastructure by ColanR on Thursday September 10, 2020 @05:52PM (#24436920)

So, if we ever manage to get proper open-source control of the cellular radios of random smartphones, would it be possible to use those cheap devices to create a GSM mesh network?

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Re:Osmocom Cellular Network Infrastructure by lima on Thursday September 10, 2020 @07:37PM (#24437746)

Not legally, since all of the frequencies in question require licensing and most are allocated to mobile phone providers.

But yes, this is already possible, in fact, Osmocom has a fully open baseband running on certain phone chipsets.

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Re:Osmocom Cellular Network Infrastructure by pabs3 on Thursday September 10, 2020 @11:12PM (#24438811)

Note that the Osmocom baseband project isn't aimed at end-user devices, only at researchers. For example it runs part of the stack on the laptop the phone is attached to.

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Re:Osmocom Cellular Network Infrastructure by swiley on Friday September 11, 2020 @06:55AM (#24441300)

I guess this is GSM, but I heard 5G operates on some license free bands.

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Re:Osmocom Cellular Network Infrastructure by zdw on Thursday September 10, 2020 @07:40PM (#24437763)

The CBRS band (48, 3.6Ghz) could be used for this. Support for this band only exists in the very newest smartphones.

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Re:Osmocom Cellular Network Infrastructure by csboyer on Thursday September 10, 2020 @08:06PM (#24437924)

Due to the frequency division/time division duplexing nature of 3GPP protocols, a mesh network is very challenging and non-trival. The 5G standardization has some study items on multi-hop networks, but that is a ways out and I’m not sure how and if it will even manifest in the standard.

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