[Asterisk-Users] Asterisk and picoCell GSM Base Stations

[Simon Anderson]

On Wed, 2004-03-31 at 20:30, John Todd wrote:
> At 7:18 PM +1200 3/31/04, Simon Anderson wrote:
> >
> >picoCell/microCell/nanoCell Base stations are low powered GSM nodes
> >designed for indoor or small area GSM coverage. Their transmission power
> >is low enough to meet the legal restrictions of many countries.
> >
> >Here are two examples;
> >
> >http://www.rivanetworks.com/nano/nano.htm
> >http://www.ipaccess.com/ipaccess_pages2/bts2.html
> >
> >Both of these Base Stations have an RJ-45 in order to do Ethernet on the
> >back end; GSM in, IP out.
> >
> >I wonder if anyone has experience interfacing one of these or a similar
> >product with Asterisk?
> >
> >I also wonder if Digium has any plans to supply PCI cards which provide
> >similar functionality?
> >
> >The prospect of recycling old cell phones for use as Asterisk extensions
> >is extremely attractive.
> >
> >Cellular phone ---GSM---> picoCell ---IP---> Asterisk
> >
> >Regards,
> >Simon.
> 
> This looks interesting, but can you explain this a bit more?  The 
> term "IP out" is incredibly vague, and on neither of the websites 
> (after a 30 second review) did they say exactly what they mean with 
> "IP out".  Does this turn GSM calls into SIP transactions?  Does it 
> need another similar device somewhere else on the IP network that 
> then turns the calls back into TDM via an FXS interface?   What 
> _does_ IP mean in this context?

For the Riva model, these are the only specs I could find;

http://www.rivanetworks.com/nano/nanospec.htm

I agree that this looks interesting. I'm hoping that the creation of
this thread on this list fills in some of the blanks.

Regards,
Simon.