[asterisk-users] Is there a low cost cell phone base station for asterisk ?

[Steve Kennedy]

On Tue, Jan 09, 2007 at 05:11:55PM -0500, M.Hockings wrote:

> I don't really know the name of what I want to look for but maybe 
> someone could tell me if it would be available.
> I have a number of old analogue cell phones laying about here and I was 
> thinking it would be useful if I could set up a short range base station 
> for them that would cover maybe an acre or so.  What I would like to be 
> able to do is use it to connect into Asterisk and this way have a useful 
> wireless extension-phone range.

Where are you. Generally you cant do that sort of thing as you don't
have a license to operate in those frequencies.

In the UK you definately don't (each cellphone has a license attached to
it, it's just the operator pays the license fee). You cant get a license
to operate a base station.

Even if you could, running a basestation tends to need a hell of a lot
of infrastructure behind it: -

 Basestation or BTS

 BSC (basesite controller) - generally can control up to about 100 BTSs.

 MSC (mobile switch centre) - like a telephony switch, connects BSCs and
 PSTN.

 HLR (home location register) - database of registered phones. Might
 need a VLR if allowing roaming.

 SMSC (short message service centre) handles SMS.

 Lots of glue ...


Steve

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