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Building a Local Cellular Phone Carrier?
Netsuj asks: "I'm doing some work for a firm which operates in B.F.E. Many miles before even arriving, I loose signal on my GSM phone. What is the feasibility of creating a limited-area wireless telephone network? As it is outside the area of repeater technology (I believe), is there such thing as a simple cellular-to-wireline system? What are the possibilities of this operating on a break-even basis for employees (i.e. charging minimal roaming fees)? Any ideas? Sadly, something like this appears to be the only option; contacting any of the mobile network operators in the larger area resulted in absolutely no interest in expanding their coverage." Unfortunately, along with the technical problems, there is also paperwork. What kind of permits and other red-tape-hurdles would be necessary to satisfy all of the lawyer-types?
You'd better be well fucking financed for this little endeavor. It's no small fucking feat.
Where the fuck do I even begin? Good christ man.
1. Obtain license from FCC. Maybe you'll get luck and you can bid on a PCS license, something minor, like an F block. That's the cheap part. Depending on the area, you might get by with only paying a few hundred thousand. Or you might be a black jew from Greenland. Figure on spending a few million on this.
2. then hire a bunch of squirly fucks to do all sort of gypsy analysis on the area. with that license, it's use it or Lose is, hizzo. That includes all sorts of wacky fucking shit like topographic analysis and god knows what else.
3. So you'll need to put up a shitload of antenna sites to cover the mandated number of people. each site is pretty cheap at about $500,000. It might only take a a dozen or so, depending on where you buy your license.
4. Don't forget to hire a law firm to handle all the FCC related bullshit. I bet they're only a couple ten thousand a year.
I'm not fucking joking about this shit. It's next to fucking impossible to do, unless you're stonecold serious. And if you're asking slashdot, I highly doubt you are.
Get a satellite phone, or landline.
Maybe ditch the GSM phone? Analog works just about everywhere. A back phone is about $80 on eBay. Or you can do it the hard way.