Hi Keith- Thanks for the questions! I have no particular attachment to the Ericsson gear, it just seemed to be the most plentiful and least expensive from what I saw on eBay. The RBS 6601 2U chassis with a DUG 20 seemed pretty reasonable, and attaching something like an RRUS 12.
Don't laugh, and since this is just for hobbyist tinkering, what I'm trying to do is get a few old BlackBerries running. They're 7290's, so only support GPRS, though I think they may support EDGE as well but I'm a little unsure on that. When you saying that GPRS is unusable for most applications, is that because of limitations in the osmocom stack, or just because GPRS is primitive when compared against 4G/5G ? I looked at the nanoBTS also, but the ones that can operate in 900MHz and hence not be illegal in the US are still pretty expensive. Though you do have a good point that factoring in the cost of a -48v power supply, the 6601, DUG20, and RRUS, it'd probably be pushing $1k anyway. What Ericsson gear do you have? Thanks much! -Ben ________________________________ From: Keith <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, September 6, 2023 12:48 PM To: [email protected] <[email protected]> Subject: Re: GPRS hardware recommendations Hi Ben, I'd be interested to know more precise details about what Ericsson gear you are looking at. This is for 2G GPRS experiments, correct? I'd also wonder what it is you are interested in doing with GPRS, I've generally found that it's pretty much unusable for most applications running on a modern IP stack. You can do ICMP "ping", yes.. but not so much more. Maybe with (only) one phone on a TRX fully configured for max packet data channels, you should be able to establish a connection to a web server, XMPP server or even an ssh session. If you configure EGPRS a.k.a EDGE, then there are more possibilities, but I think the EDGE support in osmocom for the RBS is still considered very much cutting-er..edge.. I have some Ericsson RBS gear and I have not as yet, got it up and running with either GRPS or EDGE. (Not saying it should be difficult, it just got pushed down my priority list) We do know that it's possible, although sustained operation with multiple MS, I believe, has yet to be tested. The Ericsson RBS gear also presents a not-insignificant need to look at power supply, (and consumption) RF attenuation, and last but not least, Cooling!! The SysmoBTS 1002, on the other hand, is pretty much plug-and-play at this point. Maybe somebody else can expand on GPRS support on them, as I don't have one, but an Ip.access nanoBTS might be found within the budget you mentioned.
