private cellular base station for testing.

[mrpackethead]

if i wanted to create a base station for testing LTE IOT devices, how would i go about doing it.  It woud'nt need to reach very far, just a few meters.  I want to be able to test some functionality that is generally only available to carriers ( in particular cellular broadcast ). Its not practical tob e able to send hudnreds of test mesages on a production network as you'd cause a lot of trouble to everyone else.

Are there any devices for doing this.  Mobile device manufacturers must have somethign like this?

[cat87]

For these kinds of things, Rohde and Schwarz test gears is mainly used.
They have  things like the the CMS series, which is kind of older and may not have any LTE packages for it. The advantage for these is that they're kind of cheap (1-2 k euros maybe)

Then there's the stuff like the CMW series (CMW-500 maybe ?) but these things are very expensive. Also, for an LTE license for it, you have to cash out some extra dough....north of a few thousand euros I believe it was. And what you get is basically your own private LTE network, where you can do everything you do on a a normal, public network: make calls, SMS and MMS, upload and download data, etc.
Oh, and if you're going to buy this, also buy 1 or 2 R&S SIM cards. You can't really do your tests without these. Those are about 100 euros each 

There are also other manufacturers out there, of course, but R&S I'm most familiar with. Hope this helps

[shawty]

When I worked for Orange Mobile Communications from the years 2003 to 2008, in the later years of my position as an engineer, we used to go out and do field checks on radio reception levels.

If there was a particularly radio signal, we's send a recommendation back to customer services to send the user a "Pico Cell".

These where small devices a bit like a WiFi unit that would connect your mobile phone to your regular phone line, and it would then use that either via a toll free number or one of the early Broadband connections to get the data for the call back into the Orange global network.

I don't actually remember what the full name of the units where, but the ones that had Ethernet on, you could just hook up to a regular Ethernet network and route the traffic as you saw fit, as we had one set up in our office for helping us with handset functionality and compliance testing.

However, in this day and age, you'll probably want to take a look at the "OpenBTS" project.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenBTS

If memory serves me correct, last time I looked at any of this, they actually had plans on how to turn a Raspberry PI among other things into something similar to a Pico cell and it's all based on easy to source Open source stuff.

[eliocor]

Maybe this can interest you:
https://www.crowdsupply.com/lime-micro/limesdr/updates/oai-lte-demo
https://www.crowdsupply.com/lime-micro/limesdr-mini/updates/gsm-base-station-demo

[coppice]

However, in this day and age, you'll probably want to take a look at the "OpenBTS" project.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenBTS

If memory serves me correct, last time I looked at any of this, they actually had plans on how to turn a Raspberry PI among other things into something similar to a Pico cell and it's all based on easy to source Open source stuff.

Does OpenBTS have LTE support? I thought it had fallen behind.

[shawty]

Not sure to be perfectly honest with you.

But to be fair, once you've got the Antenna connecting to your device, the rest is just standard Network Protocol stuff, which wouldn't be difficult to do, time consuming maybe, but difficult, nah...

[mrpackethead]

Maybe this can interest you:
https://www.crowdsupply.com/lime-micro/limesdr/updates/oai-lte-demo
https://www.crowdsupply.com/lime-micro/limesdr-mini/updates/gsm-base-station-demo

thanks, this is pretty handy, and i think it will do most of what i need to do, and its low cost!

[technix]

I remember someone Gave a speech on DEFCON about how they ran a private cellular network during a havkers’ summer camp.

They started off wanting to learn how does SIM cards work, but ended up being the FCC-licensed primary cellular service provider at the camp site for that year.

[mrpackethead]

The miniLimenet ( $139 ) plus osmocom GSM in a box ( opensource ) plus a raspberry PI will do the job i need. 

[sycho123321]

I remember someone Gave a speech on DEFCON about how they ran a private cellular network during a havkers’ summer camp.

They started off wanting to learn how does SIM cards work, but ended up being the FCC-licensed primary cellular service provider at the camp site for that year.

It's a great talk

[eliocor]

It seems to me this video is completely irrelevant to what the OP was searching about....

[eliocor]

>

USRP system? That could be very illegal, though.

If used with devices like this one, I think there are no problems at all:

http://www.rfshieldbox.com/datasheets/tc5910c.pdf

I own one of them and it is rather handy without requiring an anechoic chamber

[shawty]

>

USRP system? That could be very illegal, though.

If used with devices like this one, I think there are no problems at all:

http://www.rfshieldbox.com/datasheets/tc5910c.pdf

I own one of them and it is rather handy without requiring an anechoic chamber

Agreed... but the network operators often don't see it that way :-)  During my time I was tech lead on a number of "Major Criminal Cases" (The Major bit in my opinion is entirely optional... ) assisting the police with locating the evil dastardly criminal depriving the network operator of their hard earned revenue/profit.

I mean yes, I know there is criminal stuff surrounding the frequency bands and radio allocation, and all that stuff, but the way the Network Operators used to go after some of these guys, you'd think they where major organised crime villains.

Don't get me wrong, there where one or two that deserved what they got, but vast majority where just trying to make life better/easier for them selves.

Not going into details, but the one I always remember was the farmer who used to be a radio engineer, and built his own mast then hooked it into the local networks, then let the folks in the village in the valley below his farm use it for free.  He and most of the villagers had complained for years (Typical deep welsh mining valley, almost like going into another world) about the lack of a decent mobile signal, so he solved the problem.  Folks connecting via his mast still had to pay thier own operator charges, so it's not like he was giving folks free calls or anything.

Anyway (I think it was One2One at the time who lead the investigation) we eventually found the transmitter, and the network went after him for everything.  Took his land off him, got the mast pulled down, and erected their own on the same spot, took his farm off of him, fined him thousands, and got him locked up for 2 years under various trumped up criminal charges, all of it backed up by the courts.

But anyhoo... I digress.... :-)  getting a bit side tracked there....  LOL

Iv'e been out the game for 10 years now, so no idea what things are like these days.