Home » Forums » Community Edition » Open Discussion

SIP and open source in the carrier world

SkykingOH
Posts: 9677
 Member Since:
2007-12-17
Submitted by SkykingOH on Tue, 08/05/2008 - 8:28pm.

This is a great article on the Verizon Wireless PTT network

This system uses Linux and SIP protocol stacks running on the phone. The PTT calls are essentially SIP conference call setup on the fly over the Verizon EVDO network.

I worked for Winphoria before they where acquired by Motorola. SIP and 3GPP IMS where in their infancy.

It's great to see the transport is catching up to the technology.

Dick Lynch (Verizon Wireless CTO) has an incredibly talented team.

‹ ARI VmX Locator MIA on 2.6? Any cheap appliance that I can install Trixbox on? ›
--

Scott

aka "Skyking"


&nbsp

rockbochs
Posts: 128
 Member Since:
2006-12-10
Very interesting stuff. We
Wed, 08/06/2008 - 2:05pm

Very interesting stuff. We are in the midst of putting together Verizon PTT packages for the Feds and Homeland Security groups (in fact I've got several of those orange G'Zone phones sitting on my desk right now). Sort of a sidenote, but we liquidated the first EV-DO deployment in the U.S. a number of years ago (Monet Mobile Networks). The day they declared bankruptcy, Verizon bought the technology for $800 million. We sold the last of the BTS's in summer of 2006, but I still have a bunch of prototype Qualcomm Hornet EV-DO modems and other odds and ends.

--
Creator of world class Linux/FreeBSD based appliances, including the popular PhoneBochs telephony appliance.

&nbsp

SkykingOH
Posts: 9677
 Member Since:
2007-12-17
I knew you guys worked in
Wed, 08/06/2008 - 7:03pm

I knew you guys worked in tech liquidation.

Not familiar with Monet. Who's BTS's where they using?

I have experience with Motorola and Lucent Flexent BTS's

--

Scott

aka "Skyking"


&nbsp

rockbochs
Posts: 128
 Member Since:
2006-12-10
If memory serves me
Thu, 08/07/2008 - 6:47am

If memory serves me correctly (been a few years), they were using LG-based BTS's. It was quite a sight to watch the scrapper literally pull the copper and aluminum out of each and every one of them (part of Verizon's deal with Qualcomm was a requirement to destroy the existing equipment so it wouldn't get leaked out). Lucent had sent a couple of samples for Monet to test out, however Monet decided to go with LG, and the Lucent cabinets sat in the warehouse unused for years, which I then sold in 2006.

They also paid around $250,000 for a Spirent/Hekimian test platform for all their T1's, as they had roughly 4 T1's per tower (they did not use microwave). It sat in the datacenter, totally unused until they went bust. I think one of the last things I sold was their Service Provider-edition Steel-Belted Radius software, however I still have an unused Steel-Belted Odyssey software package that, to be honest, I am unsure of the purpose. I think it's some kind of authentication software to integrate wireless devices with their RADIUS software.

--
Creator of world class Linux/FreeBSD based appliances, including the popular PhoneBochs telephony appliance.

&nbsp

SkykingOH
Posts: 9677
 Member Since:
2007-12-17
I don't think the test set
Thu, 08/07/2008 - 9:07am

I don't think the test set was quite that much however I could be wrong.

IP EV-DO connections from the phones are essentially PPP sessions back to an access server. The RADIUS software provides layer 3 authentication. The HLR authenticates the mobile at Layer 1-2 (RF ESN + MIN)

--

Scott

aka "Skyking"


&nbsp

rockbochs
Posts: 128
 Member Since:
2006-12-10
The cost for the test
Thu, 08/07/2008 - 10:51am

The cost for the test equipment was provided by the datacenter engineer (who knows if he actually knew or not). I threw some pics up at www.rockbochs.com/monet (sorry for the size, didn't feel like resizing all of them). I'm really curious what http://rockbochs.com/monet/mystery.jpg and http://rockbochs.com/monet/mystery_2.jpg are. Do you have any idea? I was told they were used to emulate microwave over fiber, but I'm not totally sure.

--
Creator of world class Linux/FreeBSD based appliances, including the popular PhoneBochs telephony appliance.

&nbsp

SkykingOH
Posts: 9677
 Member Since:
2007-12-17
Ok, I am not quite sure what
Thu, 08/07/2008 - 2:59pm

Ok, I am not quite sure what the mystery box is, if I could see the front I would be better able to guess. Is it a full rack width? The Ethernet and Fiber jacks look out of scale.

That test set could be 250k, that is actually the CO end of a remote test set. Each pair of the BNC connectors are DS-3's That device talks to a DACS using TL-1 and sets up tests on T1 circuits. It looks like it has the capcity to test 100's of circuits at a time. Each DS-3 is 28 DS-1's

The DSC rack mount Compact PCI blade computer is cool. Have you pulled one of the blades to see what type of processors they are? My thought is they are probably P3;s. That would be fun to play with.

Fun stuff

--

Scott

aka "Skyking"


&nbsp

rockbochs
Posts: 128
 Member Since:
2006-12-10
The front of those mystery
Fri, 08/08/2008 - 2:29pm

The front of those mystery boxes simply say Qualcomm and have an On/Off switch. I believe they are either 19" or 23" wide.

The cPCI server was a dual-proc p3 running Windows 2000 Server. Funny thing, nothing was installed on it (not even drivers). I have a feeling Spirent came in and just threw everything in the racks without even configuring it.

Lastly, since you've been in the cell industry, I've got a few miscellaneous pieces still lying around: http://www.rockbochs.com/cell Do you know what that Nokia is? It has 4 blades with 2x 1.8ghz Xeons and 4GB of ram per blade, along with quite a few GBICs. I think it's some sort of Linux-based cell gateway, but I'm not sure.

--
Creator of world class Linux/FreeBSD based appliances, including the popular PhoneBochs telephony appliance.

&nbsp

SkykingOH
Posts: 9677
 Member Since:
2007-12-17
The Qualcomm boxes where
Fri, 08/08/2008 - 3:21pm

The Qualcomm boxes where probably some type of BSC processor from the original IS-95 stuff. Cosmetically that's what they look like.

The Nokia could have been many things, it's another nice cPCI industrial chassis. I believe these where all made by Force.

As I said, ti would be fun to have one of those running as an application blade server, however they are very noisy and you wuld have to run a decent size inverter. Just doesn't make any sense it todays world of virtualization.

--

Scott

aka "Skyking"


&nbsp

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.