AzurePCS Develops UK Community 4G Mobile Broadband Network in a Box

Fancy setting up your own private 4G mobile broadband network? A hobbyist club of UK mobile network enthusiasts has banded together to create AzurePCS, which enables individuals or small communities to legally deploy indoor 4G mobile data coverage using Ofcom’s Shared Access spectrum (LTE Band 40 – 2300MHz).

The idea is partly to give people an alternative to relying on WiFi or unlicensed solutions. The network itself is said to be based around LTE [4G] Baicells femtocells (i.e. mini-indoor base stations for mobile signals), which connect back to their centrally hosted core network over standard broadband. The LTE EPC (core network) setup they’re using also harnesses an open source project called Open5GS.

Naturally, each femtocell operator must also be able to obtain their own Ofcom Shared Access licence (currently £80/year for 10 MHz or £160/year for 20 MHz). “We can help guide them. In most cases, people can obtain an indoor-only licence, unless they are located close to Ministry of Defence sites, as the MoD are the incumbent users of this band,” said Alex of the AzurePCS project.

So far as community driven UK telecom projects go, this one is really quite interesting, but it’s worth noting that there are some limitations to this approach. The network that is established is only able to deliver a 4G (LTE) data / internet connection because they don’t have an interconnection with public networks, which means no external calls or text (SMS) messages to mobile users on other networks (or emergency calling).

However, you can send internal SMS (text) messages between other AzurePCS users, while external SMS is being looked at as a future development. Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) is also under testing for internal calls, although at present it’s intermittent and only seems to work reliably on Samsung phones.

“It’s very much an experimental, evolving project for people to join and have fun with,” said Alex to ISPreview. In other words, anybody looking to deploy this network won’t be doing so as part of a professional service, but more as a hobbyist platform for experiments or unique community projects; it is clearly not designed to replace a real mobile network.

Alex said:

“We’re actively building and testing a 2G core network by osmocom, with the longer-term aim of supporting combined 2G + 4G femtocells to enable internal circuit-switched calls and CS fallback, improving device compatibility and resilience.

Importantly, this isn’t a commercial MVNO or ISP product. There’s currently no usage fee, and in future we may introduce a voluntary £2/month membership tier purely to help cover hosting and operational costs. The goal is experimentation, education, exploring how shared spectrum and community cellular networks could be used in the UK alongside general fun for fellow hobbyists like myself.”

At the time of writing, AzurePCS hadn’t yet launched their shop with the necessary hardware for purchase, but that’s expected to happen very soon (due next month). One other thing to be aware of is that this setup should work on most fixed broadband connections, but some ISPs (e.g. Vodafone) may adopt parental or network-level restrictions that cause connectivity problems.

For example, some ISPs block UDP port 500 and 4500, which are required for the IPsec tunnel used by the femtocells to securely connect back to the AzurePCS core. If these ports are blocked, the femtocell cannot establish a connection. Equally, some consumer broadband connections may have restrictions in their T&Cs that could forbid running certain types of hosted networks or servers , although this is rarely enforced (business packages usually allow it).

Finally, the network will work on almost all devices (Smartphones) that support LTE Band 40, although there is one exception for some Apple iPhones (iPhones older than version 12 won’t connect due to the fact AzurePCS use a private (999) PLMN).

Now, for those who like mobile network stats, here’s a live example of the setup in operation..