Range Networks OpenBTS Dev-Kit Quick-Start Guide

This page assumes a working knowledge of the Linux command line and normal IP networking. It is a "developer's" kit, after all.

Hardware Description

The  Range developer's kit comprises a Range Networks "RAD1" wideband digital radio and a mini-ITX computer running Ubuntu Linux. It also includes a power supply and pair of multi-band omni antennas.

Radio Performance

All dev kits have a maximum output power of 100 mW (-20 dBm).

The standard dev kit (part number 2110-001) does not include any band-specific filtering in the transmitter or receiver. This allows it to be used in any of the four standard GSM bands. The lack of filtering does limit performance, though, due to output power leaking back into the input antenna. There are a few ways to mitigate this effect:

  • Use the CLI "power" command to lower the output power. The setting "power 20 20" will lower the output power level to -40 dBm, which is probably the best tradeoff between downlink range and uplink range.
  • Place the transmit and receive antennas as far apart as possible.
  • Keep transmit and receive antennas at right angles to each other to minimize crosstalk.

Software Description

The 2110 comes preconfigured, meaning that all of this stuff has already been done.

The unit comes with the latest public release source code for the following components:

  • OpenBTS
  • smqueue
  • sipauthserve
  • RRLP aiding server

All of these source code directories are installed as SVN working directories, linked to the official public release repositories. Any of them can be updated with the normal svn update command.

The dev kit also includes Asterisk, preconfigured to support real-time operation. (So you don't need to worry about this stuff, either.)

Source Code Directory Structure

The Range software source code is located on the devkit under /home/openbts/software/, and directly mirrors the public SVN repository.

The directory /home/openbts/software/public/openbts/trunk/apps/ contains a symbolic link to /home/openbts/software/public/openbts/trunk/TransceiverRAD1/transceiver so that when /home/openbts/software/public/openbts/trunk/apps/OpenBTS is run it will function properly.

Accessing and Using the Dev Kit

The primary interface to the dev kit is the Linux shell, accessed via  ssh from the ethernet connector on the from panel.

The dev kit is shipped with a default IP address of 192.168.0.21. There is an sudo-capable account called "openbts" with the password "openbts". Once you have configured another PC or laptop on the 192.168.0.x subnet, you can the unit via ssh. From Unix-type system (Linux or Mac OS X, for example), you can access the unit 

ssh openbts@192.168.0.21

and then give the password "openbts". From Windows machine, the ssh interface can be accessed via an ssh client, like  PuTTY.

Running OpenBTS

The full OpenBTS system includes several components:

  • OpenBTS itself, the GSM stack from L1 forward error correction up through layer 3
  • smqueue, the SMS store and forward server
  • sipauthserve, the SIP registration proxy
  • the subscriber registry database
  • a SIP PBX, like Asterisk, which is installed on the dek kit

The relationships among these components is shown in this diagram.

For details on running all of these components, see BuildInstallRun#RunningItAll. Each component is normally built from its corresponding trunk directory.

There are scripts in /home/openbts/ for quickly stopping and starting different components, or all of the components at once.

Updating OpenBTS

As a general run, to update an OpenBTS component, go to the directory for that component, update it with svn update and rebuild it with make. 

cd <component>/trunk
svn update
make

See UpdateOpenBTS for any additional details.

Support

Paid Support

If you have paid support for your unit, contact support@…. If you do not have paid support, but would like it, contact sales@….

Free Support

Free support for the public release is available from the OpenBTS public mailing list, openbts-discuss (at) lists.sourceforge.net.