British mobile giant Vodafone has done something special. The operator has combined a credit-card sized Raspberry Pi 4 personal computer with a new mobile (mobile broadband) chip to create a portable prototype device, which could enable small businesses and households to setup their own private 5G networks (MPNs).
The development is mainly about trying to make 5G-based mobile private networks (MPNs) more accessible to the 22 million small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across the UK and Europe. But it could also offer households extended 5G coverage (i.e. providing an additional fast broadband link at times when many residents are online simultaneously).
The new system combines a Raspberry Pi 4 with a small 5G compatible embeddable software-defined radio (SDR) circuit board, made by UK-based Lime Microsystems. This SDR Board can turn any computing platform into a miniature 5G base station.
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The resulting system can then be used either as part of a dedicated private network, an extension of a larger MPN or connected to Vodafone’s public network like any other base station. The board design is fully compliant to Open Radio Access Network (RAN) standards, which means it can be used with any computing machine capable of running OpenRAN compatible software.
Santiago Tenorio, Vodafone’s Director of Network Architecture, said:
“We looked at what Raspberry Pi did for computing, in terms of making it more accessible to people of all ages, and we wanted to do the same with 5G.”
Whilst this is just a prototype, it has the potential to bring new cloud, AI and big data technologies within reach of many of the small businesses we support across Europe. The next step is to take ideas like this to a place where they can be developed and eventually produced. Our door is open to interested vendors.”
Vodafone added that this was all part of their efforts to “democratise MPNs” and extend their benefits, whilst lowering the entry cost and reducing the resources needed to experience new digital services.
The 5G network on a Raspberry Pi is portable and no bigger than a home Wi-Fi router, meaning a customer could instantly set up their very own, private network in a public place such as a coffee shop, or extend the coverage of the public network to a remote location like a basement.
At this stage, there’s no information on how much all of this would cost a typical household or small business to deploy, but hopefully that will follow. The concept itself was developed at Vodafone’s new European R&D Centre in Málaga, Spain.
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I would happily buy one of these devices to improve the mobile signal around my house. I have good broadband speeds and plenty of spare bandwidth but my mobile signal isn’t great.
the networks used to offer femtocells to people in poor signal areas. But I think WiFi calling put a stop to that. Which kinda sucks because WiFi calling doesn’t always work and you can’t turn it on and off whenever you want etc. Some phones have more control over it than others, and some places don’t do it all. There are legal boosters now though.
@Granger These devices are not intended for extending your coverage, it’s for creating your own network.
Are they also planning to publish How-To to make it at home for those who can? If not then I am wondering how quickly we’ll see it reverse engineered DIY version.
Just grab OpenBTS and read the instructions 🙂
Can you run OpenBTS legally?
yeah OpenBTS is Asterisk/FreeSwitch etc. it is not even close to 3/4/5G repeater plugged into wired network.
The only problem with this is that the RPi 4 isn’t easily available right now, not unless you buy a kit with a bunch of guff or pay scalpers prices.
I want an RPi 4 for my Amiga, but I’m either having to use trackers to monitor stock alerts or looking at having to pay double the price.
No easily available for you, yes.
Businesses get fulfilment contracts for bulk purchases. Vodafone will have no issues getting Rpi4s
@BigJonny
Depends on whether they intend on being the ‘sole supplier’ or something ‘anyone’ can make with the right off the shelf SDR.
The use of the RPi makes me think that either they intend the latter or this is just something they quickly threw together and/or don’t intend on seeing high sales.
Personally I have no needs for a device like this even though my mobile reception at home is really bad on most networks. Most of my communications are now via apps using data, including when doing voice or video. I do get called on my mobile from time to time but WiFi calling fills that small gap nicely. However if I could earn some money putting a 5G node in my house using my fast internet connection and the ROI was reasonable (~12 months) I would be certainly interested.
it’s not intended for that purpose anyway. It’s so a company can build it’s own private 5G network. They’re mostly used for telemetry/sensor data/controlling robots etc. It’s not designed to be a booster/femtocell etc.
My grumpy tangential comment as somebody still waiting for another Pi 4B at not scalper prices (9 months and counting) …. the last thing I need is another [business] vendor using up Pi’s.
It would seem then there is no end to the usefulness of the Raspberry Pi, but then we all knew that.
There are serveral different choices now, the PI is indeed a fantastic little single board computer, but it has become another expensive middle-agers toy instead of the educational cheap device it was intended to be. It went from something that cost the equivalent of a couple of packs of fags to something that costs £138 now on Amazon, if you can find one. It was meant for kids, tinkerers, schools etc but it morphed into a device for Youtube e-celebs and corporations. Anyway, ranting aside, there are other options now and dozens of single board computers that are cheaper and better spec’d. Of course they are basically chinese clones with a few extra features but they do exist.
Whilst I can see the convenience of a 5G Femtocell (something Vodafone seem to have promoted in the past?) I guess it runs head to head with the latest WiFi devices in performance? I don’t think there are too many 5G IoT devices (yet) which probably means running both WiFi and 5G in the same airspace. Not a problem bandwidth wise but more devices radiating signals. On the other hand, a 5G femtocell might be great for public spaces such as inside rail cars, arena’s, department stores (you’ve all done very well :-)), etc.
Undoubtedly the device will be using the Rpi4 compute module rather than the ubiquitous Rpi4 board everyone loves so, as was stated above, supply should not be a problem for industrial buyers.
N.B. I still have a couple of original 256MB Pi’s but they are far too slow for any serious use with PiOS and Clamav!