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Private: Review: Teleware PMN Rapid Deployment Unit (RDU)

Started by Ewan · 9 months ago

If you’re a true telecoms geek (and lets face it, if you’re reading MIR, you’re well on your way) then you’ve thought, nay dreamed, about having your own mobile network. Even for the non-techies amongst us (I’ve been told there are some), the ... Continue reading »

14 comments

  • Kirk "Grumpy" Bateman

    9 months ago

    Excellent review Jay.

    Having had a few comments with J, it looks like a lot of the issues could be resolved by moving to a linux only solution, SMSC software is relatively available these days and using only linux would probably cut the cost by somewhere around £2k - £5k I suspect, also it could possibly resolve the heating / cooling issues.

    Just my thoughts... nice piece of kit though ... wouldn't mind one myself (make it open source and I'll do the mods too :)
    reply
  • Jay Fenton

    9 months ago

    If you enjoyed the review, please Digg it so other like-minded folk get to see: http://digg.com/hardware/Teleware_s_Private_Mob...

    Thanks :)
    reply
  • TerenceEden

    9 months ago

    Brilliant review :-)

    When you roamed your T-Mobile SIM on to the network, were you able to receive calls on it? If so, who is getting the roaming interconnect revenue that you'd pay? I guess that making calls wouldn't cost roaming charges?

    I wonder why the software isn't wholly Linux? If it really needs to run some Windows software, why not use WINE or run Windows as the virtual machine? Slightly odd.

    It would seem to me that the perfect addition to this would be a satellite phone. OK, you can plug it into a LAN or phone jack - but there aren't many of those in the middle of the jungle.

    Finally, "No user serviceable parts"? That sounds like a challenge to me. Get some torx and crack it open!
    reply
  • Jay Fenton

    9 months ago

    Thanks Terence. It wasn't roaming per-sae, as the PMN had no backhaul facility to T-Mobile and so they were totally out of the loop when I was within range of the PMN. You'd need to add an 'outside of coverage' divert on your T-Mobile number, to bounce the call to a real phone number that was routed to the PMN.

    Ideally, you'd grab a number from someone like AQL.. then you can have Voice+SMS+Fax all on one number, and have it automagically route to wherever you are :) No roaming charges, and all your calls can be routed via VoIP out of the PMN when you're at your home/office - I imagine it'd pay for itself fairly quickly!

    Maybe we can all club together and time-share a PMN?
    reply
  • Ben Smith

    9 months ago

    Jay Fenton for King!

    or president

    or prom queen

    just give the man a medal... dammit.
    reply
  • Jay Fenton

    9 months ago

    Prom queen? Have you been following me at the weekends again?
    reply
  • Mike42

    9 months ago

    It's the red velour chair / throne thing....
    reply
  • jamesbody

    9 months ago

    Well - if you want your own setup - but do not want to pay the GBP 20 price tag, then there is always the wonderful OpenBTS projecy - see Wikipedia entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenBTS

    Of course you will still have to find someone with some spectrum to 'borrow' - but the thought of 'Community owned' GSM is one that really appeals to me - particularly as I live in a rural village in a valley in SW Wiltshire where GSM just does not reach (an the MNOs appear relctant to provide coverage).
    reply
  • Jay Fenton

    9 months ago

    Any clue as to how much it costs to get a license? The PMN can only handle 4x calls at once (8-channel AMR BTS) and has limited range, so surely can't have cost Teleware too much? (famous last words, but otherwise Pico/Femto-cell deployments in offices would be prohibitively expensive).

    The OpenBTS project looks great, but the lack of easy legal testing is obviously holding up its progress.

    Radio waves should be free, man.
    reply
  • Kirk "Grumpy" Bateman

    9 months ago

    Yup complete agreement here ... if we can figure out the prices I'm sure the usual crowd (and the prom queen) could knock something together that works. Sounds like a good bit of fun too...
    reply
  • Mike42

    9 months ago

    "Radio waves should be free, man."

    No they bloody shouldn't! That's VC talk there. Standards, properly co-ordinated and managed, are it, man. This is the RF equilvalent of saying that IP should be free - We don't need that pesky IPv4/ICANN system. Free the Bits!

    Proponents of free RF favour the 'Detect and Avoid' mechanism, relying on ultra/fast and sensitive detectors to sense when spectrum is in use by others. Nice idea, but there are fundamental flaws in this logic when operating at the noise floor, as CDMA systems do.

    We've seen what 'Free' radio waves delivers - Any Blyk subscribers out there?

    Funnily enough, I like call quality. I like 5 9's of reliability. I have no desire to bring the wonderful end-user experience that is WiFi RF "management" to the voice/sms world.

    You'll be telling me mesh networks are viable next!
    reply
  • JamesVincent

    9 months ago

    I WANT ONE. OR TWO
    reply
  • Ryan Cullen

    7 months ago

    Was it possible to set your own network name like "Garfone". All I could see was the 00104.
    reply
  • Jay Fenton

    7 months ago

    I have no doubt that it /is/ possible, but I couldn't find an option to do it in amongst the hundreds of configurables (we also didn't have a manual, and I did try to call support several times but... well, lets just say the support wasn't a great experience).
    reply

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