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Burning Man Goes Open Source For Cell Phones
coondoggie passes along this excerpt from Network World:
"Today I bring you a story that has it all: a solar-powered, low-cost, open source cellular network that's revolutionizing coverage in underprivileged and off-grid spots. It uses VoIP yet works with existing cell phones. It has pedigreed founders. Best of all, it is part of the sex, drugs and art collectively known as Burning Man. ... The technology starts with the 'they-said-it-couldn't-be-done' open source software, OpenBTS. OpenBTS is built on Linux and distributed via the AGPLv3 license. When used with a software-defined radio such as the Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP), it presents a GSM air interface ("Um") to any standard GSM cell phone, with no modification whatsoever required of the phone. It uses open source Asterisk VoIP software as the PBX to connect calls, though it can be used with other soft switches, too. ... This is the third year its founders have decided to trial-by-fire the system by offering free cell phone service to the 50,000-ish attendees at Burning Man, which begins today in Black Rock City, Nevada. "
Seriously, I'm totally confused by this. Did the burning man attendees actually set the /article/ on fire as well?
I haven't been to Burning Man in a few years, but when I did go it was nice to get away from it all. I suppose I could choose to not use/bring my cell phone - but if other people are still tethered to the ordinary world...? Well - bummer!
There's certainly a lot of overlap between the techie crowd and the hippie crowd. Steve Jobs, for example, experimented with LSD.
Jobs never has been been really a techie though, he is more of a hipster businessman.
Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
While cell phones are nifty and I wouldn't want to live day to day without mine, I think this is largely missing the point of Burning Man.
Jherico
What can the average user can do to ensure his security? "Nothing, you're screwed"
Is this the same Burning Man that claims copyright on any PRIVATE photos taken at their events?
PASS. Horrible IP grab + single Open Source project is still a negative, methinks.
After reading their regulations section however I feel freer out here in the network than in that caged city.
But... the future refused to change.
You think that's bad? Right now you are surrounded by almost 7 billion people!
But... the future refused to change.
Cool project. Unfortunately the use of AGPL will guarantee no one ever uses it. Too bad. Imagine having a base station where you have to require a partition for the source. Or people with broken cell phones saying you're not providing an equal opportunity to download the software source. Ugh.
What's unreal about that?
nobody is going to make you a GSM antenna/BTS/BSC in a box. (when somebody tries, expect "fm transmitter" quality)
there's always going to be a lot of work involved with making groups of people with unique requirements happy. this is LIGHT YEARS ahead of the last ten years, trying to get Motorola or Siemens to put up JUST a BTS, would have started at $250K + installation, and you still need all the signaling system / authentication hardware to go with it. to be able to put up a macro cell with > 10 subscribers allowed over it is revolutionary.
all said and done, to provide service in north america, you could put up about $25K worth of equipment, and get multi point coverage for a city of about 20K. (depending on density, the denser the better) couple that with a few redundant routers($10K a year) and redundant 100/100 internet connections (about $18K a month), plus a decent contract with a major PSTN termination provider estimate WAY high at $10K a month, and you could be supplying GSM cell service for unmodified phones, with unlimited voice, and unlimited data for a whopping cost of $2.00/month/subscriber. (that'll get you NEARLY unlimited capacity, for the few times you go over, take it out of your huge profit you'd be making at even $10/month/person.
that price is going to go up a bit, (tower rental space, installation, salaries, general business overhead) but a well run business would be able to automate most of the process, and start turning a profit in the first year. (likely in the first few months, with a decent ad campaign! )
compare that to modern cell companies, and I think you'll see how far we've come.
FYI,
Some have inquired as to using OpenBTS with FreeSWITCH as well as Asterisk. Alberto Escudero (aka AEP) wrote this wiki page nearly a year ago:
http://wiki.freeswitch.org/wiki/OpenBTS
It's slightly dated but the information is accurate.
-MC
The FCC grants them a temporary experimental license because they can't cause much interference out in the middle of the desert. If you fire up OpenBTS anywhere in civilization you're probably breaking the law. Fortunately the equipment is a bit more expensive than CB radio and the carriers have a real incentive to crack down on interferers, so I doubt there will be too many problems in the real world.
I think what he's trying to say is that he was Steve Jobs best customer.
Their FAQ, http://pagalegba2010.wikispaces.com/FAQ, has a link to the experimental FCC license: http://openbts.sourceforge.net/FieldTest3/STAGrant.pdf
I fear the burning man festival may soon flame out, or at best, morph into an anemic lame-o semblance of it's former self
I think I've been hearing that it's already done that from people who have attended it every year in the last decade. People were probably saying the same thing before then, I just wasn't paying attention.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Ummm, I'm confused. The frequencies that GSM uses are licensed by the FCC to specific operators. The phones are used under the control of the operator, who has a license for each and every cell site.
It's the confusion born from not RTFAing.
GSM operates on licensed bandwidth, so for any U.S. installation, the OpenBTS crew always obtains a FCC license and works with the local carrier to coordinate frequency use. When attendees get into range and power up their phones, the system sends them a text that says "Reply to this message with your phone number and you can send and receive text messages and make voice calls."
I'm guessing the person who modded you up didn't RTFA either.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Burning Man had its brief, shining moment, but when was that...? Circa mid-90's? Now it's a staged pseudo-event the very promotion of which cuts against the grain of what it was supposed to be. I see the jowly middle-aged Marketing Suits queuing up for their Burning Man tickets and I am reminded of the giddy tourists in and around Woodstock, NY paying $25 for a tie-dyed peace-sign T-shirt.
Have you ever been? It is the population density of a city, modulo the multistory units (except for the nuts who do build those). I don't know what the plan this year is (I'm missing it this year, sniff), but last year, the camp radius was 2100 feet, putting the vast bulk of those 50K people in a 1-mile diameter area. Not many people camp in "deep playa" (the burner term for the area outside of the radial roads but inside the trash perimeter).
Back on topic, there's been signal there for at least the last three years, but it became useless once the gates opened and the hordes descended. My take is that cell service during the main event is going to be a net negative, but it is inevitable. It will become something akin to the ongoing war on glow sticks - a bunch of us will mercilessly mock glow-stuck cellphone users and try to shame them into putting the fucking things down and be present, and it mostly won't work.
Those of us who do LNT (Leave No Trace, the massive cleanup effort post event) will get to ground score cellphones, though. People lose everything else.
I forget what 8 was for.
Thank you for explaining the joke to our slower slashdot readers...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Steve Jobs was a coke dealer.
No, it was John Scully and Pepsi
Not a techie? He worked as a technician for Atari, and worked on the design for the motherboard for Breakout. You also don't successfully manage a technology company like Apple without having a grasp of technology.
Of course, Woz was far more adept at hardware, which brings a lot of people to make the claim that Jobs is just a businessman.
Remember that the most popular guy on the beach is the one who can carry a dozen donuts and a cup of coffee in each hand.