Feb 2, 2018, Koror, Republic of Palau

PT Waves, Palau’s second mobile operator, is now live!

PT Waves is a new low-cost mobile operator leveraging Fairwaves technology to empower residents and visitors of Palau. Thanks to Fairwaves low-cost technology and a turn-key approach the network was built for maybe 5x less than traditional solutions and in a record time of just few months. A lower level of investment will enable PT Waves to make mobile communication affordable for all in the country which has previously had only one operator and excessive calling rates too expensive for most of the population.

This project marks an important milestone for Fairwaves – we built an entire Telco up from scratch, not just extend the coverage of an existing operator. Fairwaves provides and manages the radio and core networks, the billing system and interconnection with the global telephone network.

This is also the first commercial launch of FairFi – a WiFi with cellular experience, integrated with 2G/4G networks. With FairFi voice calling and low-cost data share one bill and offer seamless user experience.

We are looking forward to offering the same turn-key approach to all the upstart operators around the world. Now you can profitably connect the places which you couldn’t connect with traditional telecom vendors.

Coming to MWC? Get in touch!

The post PT Waves and Fairwaves have launched a new mobile operator in Palau appeared first on Fairwaves.

Paul explains that “the advent of white box hardware from vendors coincides with the twin software trends towards software defined networks (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV)”, bringing the flexibility and efficiency of the cloud, with further cost savings.  Noting also how “an open source policy is a key ingredient in the SDN/NFV combination”.

Of course, Fairwaves base stations are Linux-based and open source, all the way from the UmTRX transceiver hardware and up through the layers of the Osmocom GSM stack. While our solutions also benefit from a distributed cloud core, flexible management and remote upgrade. So it’s perhaps not surprising we received a notable mention!

To find out more read the Lime Microsystems post.

The post Has the Time Arrived for White Boxes in Wireless Infrastructure? appeared first on Fairwaves.

Thanks to our dual transceiver architecture and the Osmocom software it is now possible to support two independent BTS on a single UmTRX or Fairwaves UmSITE, which may be configured for different bands or even networks.

To find out more read the blog post over on umtrx.org.

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“For the first time specific bands have been assigned for social use in the telecommunications sector. As part of this, various portions that are available within the segment known as the cellular band, between 824-849 and between 869-894 MHz, are now available for concessioning.

It is proposed that these portions of the spectrum are to be concessioned for the provision of rural connectivity, which could meet the immediate needs of basic telephone service in regions not served by existing licensees.”

Further details of the plan can be found in a Spanish news article.

What this means is that the entire country, with the exception of Mexico City and surrounding states, can now benefit from community networks such as those operated by Rhizomatica, to whom due credit must go for all their efforts and pioneering work under an experimental concessioning scheme, which will have played no small part in bringing about this groundbreaking policy change.

This truly is fantastic news and to the best of our knowledge the first time that community GSM networks have been legislated in a country where they are actually — desperately — needed. We have previously seen similar legislation in the Netherlands, Belgium and Sweden, but compare the coverage in those countries to Mexico, where some 50,000 villages, or about 20 million people, are presently without service.

Fairwaves cellular solutions are optimised for rural community networks and are used by Rhizomatica in their deployments.

The post Mexican regulator assigns GSM spectrum for community use appeared first on Fairwaves.

Telecom Application Developer Hackathon is a rare event where you could meet so many people hacking on telecom applications and not the boring web or mobile stuff.

Are you coming? We do.

Fairwaves will bring a good part of its development team and we’re looking forward to do something awesome. We will bring some UmSITE hardware with us and we’re happy to share it. Let us know if you want to play with it. UmSITE’s will run Osmocom software stack with SIP and SMPP as external interfaces for calls and SMS.

The event is taking place in Madrid, Spain on June 6-7.

Looking forward to see you there!

The post TADhack 2014 appeared first on Fairwaves.

Fairwaves has signed up to become a licensee of the Open Invention Network (OIN), providing it with royalty-free access to a growing patent portfolio that covers the Linux ecosystem and includes numerous mobile technologies.

Access to the defensive portfolio affords Fairwaves a measure of protection from the actions of patent trolls and those who would seek to attack or undermine the open-source ecosystem. We’re in great company, with founding companies including IBM, Sony and NEC, and licensees ranging from SMEs and smaller open source projects, to global tech giants and major open source projects.

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It’s a proper time to put everything aside and fly to the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. This is our 3rd year at the MWC and this time we are not just MWC attendees, but also finalists of the “4 Years From Now” startup competition.

Our passion is to reach mobile networks affordability anywhere in the world. And this year we’re organizing a special cocktail reception for policy makers, telco gurus, investors and researchers to talk about:

• Open-source in telecom.
• Profitable mobile connectivity in rural areas.
• Community Cellular Networks.
•  Value added services for fun and profit.

Check out the registration page to get details about the venue and to let us know if you plan to attend.

If you want to meet us and talk in person – contact us and we will be happy to arrange a meeting.

See you at the MWC! Viva Barcelona!

The post Viva Barcelona! appeared first on Fairwaves.

Rhizomatica.org has recently received a favorable review of their request for an experimental concession from the Mexican government to install local mobile networks in about 5,000 indigenous communities in Oaxaca, Veracruz, Puebla, Guerrero and Tlaxcala states of Mexico. This concession is a result of 2 years of working with these communities and the government, and could herald tectonic shifts in mobile industry regulation.

Now Mexican communities can join Rhizomatica and build their own small mobile networks, without having to go to the incumbent mobile operators and their suppliers. Traditionally, a mobile operator concession in a country of Mexico size costs 100’s of millions of dollars, meaning only large corporations can enter the market. Who always have their priorities elsewhere, but to serve rural communities. Mexican mobile operators refuse to install their equipment in villages with less than 5,000 inhabitants. This leaves out almost all villages in rural Oaxaca! The effect on coverage and access is strong with around 50,000 rural localities in the whole Mexico without cellular service.

5 hour drive from Yaviche to Oaxaca City (online map)

Yaviche was selected as one of the first to try the Fairwaves technology. A small community of around 700 inhabitants, Yaviche is located deep in the northern Oaxaca mountains – about 5 hours drive from Oaxaca City. On September 27th, 2013, villagers made their first local calls using Fairwaves UmDESK equipment, which has a built-in PBX and doesn’t need any external infrastructure to connect calls. Even if the unstable satellite Internet connection, as the one used by Yaviche, goes down, local life goes on without any disruption.

First calls in Yaviche

Surprisingly, in a village of just 700 people which have never had mobile coverage, the network immediately detected more than 100 active phones. It turns out that people use phones as multi-functional devices with a calculator, alarm clock, games and many other tools provided in the phone.

A mobile phone is not a rare commodity in Yaviche

Two weeks after installation, the Yaviche mobile network has more than 400 phones registered. In a typical day the Yaviche mobile network connects 500-1000 local calls and delivers 3000-4000 SMS messages. Users find it a very useful tool, for example the village doctor now calls all his patients to check on them without having to walk around the whole day. People working in the fields can call home to let them know of their whereabouts and if there are any problems.

Fields may be as far as 1-2 hours of walk away

Next step for the village is to get a stable internet connection to be able to connect to other surrounding villages. The doctor in Yaviche mentioned that it would be handy to connect Yaviche to a nearby community, Talea de Castro, because they have a clinic and a lab and he could diagnose people faster if he could call those. Luckily, Talea is a part of Rhizomatica and runs its own GSM network as well.

It’s expected that all communities joining Rhizomatica will be able call each other at no cost.  Many more communities are waiting to be connected during the next year, as we’re yet to see the real potential of the project. Spreading around the country, this network of mobile networks will only grow in value for its users over time.

English translation: “Your phone number at the Air Zapoteco (mobile communications network of Yaviche) is 28471. Call 20000 to get help”

Interconnection with traditional mobile and fixed telephone networks is another venue for further development. Fairwaves is working with one of the biggest VoIP trunk providers in US to provide high quality yet affordable calling and messaging rates to/from traditional networks.

UmDESK and two 2W boosters

Speaking about the underlying technology, the network in Yaviche runs with an UmDESK, powered by Fairwaves UmTRX. With two TRXs (two ARFCNs) it allows up to 14 concurrent voice connections in full quality. When this capacity is exhausted, we could switch few settings and almost double capacity in exchange of some voice quality.

Bamboo pole is used to raise antennas above the village

For this installation we used two 2W boosters, one per each TRX. The base station is located in a corner of the village and thus two patch antennas are used to direct radio transmission to village center. Antennas are hooked to a 6m bamboo pole, placed atop a two-story building. This setup easily covers the whole village, providing coverage even inside adobe buildings, typical for this area.

Coverage map of the installation (online map)

UmDESK runs a Fairwaves version of Osmocom open-source software, the same as we’re using in the Netherlands. We started using Osmocom software at the beginning of this year and found that it works much better in real life deployments than OpenBTS. It almost never crashes, has more features, scales better and is more flexible. Not to say it evolves at an incredible pace, quickly closing the gap with proprietary GSM implementations. We’re happy to join the vibrant and exceptionally skilled Osmocom community as it ideally suits our vision and our business needs.

After installation in Yaviche (L-R): Peter Bloom (Rhizomatica), Oswaldo (Yaviche BTS host/operator), “Ciaby” (Rhizomatica), Alexander Chemeris (Fairwaves)

Alexander Chemeris, CEO of Fairwaves says: “This project is exactly what we foresaw when we started Fairwaves in 2011. We’ve tailored our solution for the needs of distributed village networks and we’re glad to see it being put in use. We’re looking forward to working hand in hand on this project with the Rhizomatica.org and we’re set to do all we can to make it a real success.”

Peter Bloom, head of Rhizomaica.org says: “Thanks to Fairwaves, we finally have a low-cost, stable solution that meets the demands of rural deployments and is in-line with local budgets.”

It is worth noting that the key component which has enabled the realisation of our solution is the field programmable transceiver microchip supplied by Lime Microsystems . Ebrahim Bushehri, CEO of Lime Microsystems commented: “It is great to see that our aim in offering a highly integrated, low cost solution to the Open Source community has resulted in such an optimised network, bringing affordable wireless connectivity for the benefit of the communities within the region. We are delighted to be working with Fairwaves and their partners for shaping the future of wireless access.”

Rhizomatica.org and Fairwaves project press coverage

• CNN: http://edition.cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2013/12/10/mexico-mobile-phone-cell-service-rafael-romo.cnn

• BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-24450542

• RT: (Spanish) http://actualidad.rt.com/sociedad/view/119495-telefonia-movil-llega-selva-mexicana

The post Telecom revolution starts in Yaviche, Mexico appeared first on Fairwaves.

After a season of testing, Fairwaves and Event Connection built a private GSM network that covered the city of Nijmegen (The Netherlands) during the “Walk of the World,” one of the largest festivals in The Netherlands. With over 40,000 people walking and about a million spectators, commercial GSM networks faced a hard time remaining on the air.

The main objective was to provide a GSM service with 100% service availability that did not depend on incumbent operators. Key people from security staff, local stages and police were delighted to have a reliable service covering the town, even when the public networks were down. The system provided short number calling for internal calls, which made using the system particularly easy.

Event Connection’s founder, Barney Broomer said, “For a long time we searched for the right private GSM solution that addressed our specific needs in the outdoors. Over the last two years we tested almost every system available in the private GSM market, but none of them made it even one day. We discovered that our needs required an affordable, tailor-made solution. Fairwaves provided us with a solution that works perfectly in our wireless grid.”

The key component of the network was Fairwaves UmSITE base station, based on Osmocom open-source software and UmTRX open-source hardware. Fairwaves pre-configured it to meet all regulatory requirements and to use VoIP to connect with traditional phone networks; Event Connection took care of all wireless IP connections and installation. Fairwaves provided equipment, as well as remote monitoring and real-time adaptation of the system based on customer requirements.

The next step for the two companies is the development of a ruggedized version of the system for the event and security market that will be launched the fourth quarter of 2013.

Alexander Chemeris, Fairwaves Founder/CEO, said: “We have been looking for a good partner to enter the security and event GSM market for a long time and we’re happy to partner with Event Connection in the Netherlands. Event Connection has a very professional team that already has great experience in the market.”

About Fairwaves

Fairwaves helps service providers enter the mobile field. Providers can quickly roll-out a network and launch profit-generating services, with a minimal initial budget. Fairwaves develops and sells equipment, as well as providing hosted services. Our success is based on the latest IC technology, the power of open-source and a network of proven partners.

About Event Connection

Event Connection provides communications infrastructure where it is typically hard to find. Its main businesses include one-stop, tailor-made services, such as telephony, internet, video surveillance, sound level monitoring, information systems and audio and video streaming from any location in Europe.

Links

• Dreamfields festival – http://www.dreamfields.nl/
• Walk of the World – http://www.4daagse.nl/en/
• Fairwaves – https://fairwaves.co
• Event Connection – http://www.eventconnection.eu

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Fairwaves has launched the industry’s first truly open-source professional-grade base station transceiver, called UmTRX, to coincide with the second annual Hardware Freedom Day. Transceiver hardware was the last missing piece in the open-source GSM ecosystem. This has never happened before in the telecom industry that anyone could build a complete base station from open-source pieces.

The UmTRX launch advances the open-source model beyond the current USRP systems, where typically schematics, but not layout files were published. It also aims to take a truly open-source model – applied to mainly hobbyists and lab use – to industrial and carrier-grade quality applications.

Designed for GSM, the base station transceiver uses Lime Microsystem‘s LMS6002D field programmable RF (FPRF) transceiver IC, which can be configured to run on any communications frequency (0.3-3.8GHz) and any mobile communications standard (LTE, WCDMA, WiMAX…).

Alexander Chemeris, Fairwaves CEO said: “UmTRX was created as a GSM base station transceiver, but the capabilities of the FPRF means that we can deploy it for LTE and other systems with a very small incremental cost. We are also using the UHD API, familiar to all USRP users, so people can use their existing applications with UmTRX”.

Ebrahim Bushehri, Lime CEO said: “This is a really important innovation and I feel this could have a huge impact on the future deployment of wireless infrastructure, especially in the creation of low cost networks for the developing world.”

Fairwaves claims that its UmTRX is the easiest way of running OpenBTS and OsmoBTS in a lab. The UmTRX also acts as a transceiver for UmSITE – a complete base station, manufactured by Fairwaves. The UmTRX for UmSITE are rigorously tested and calibrated during manufacturing, ensuring best performance throughout the whole range of operating temperatures.

The platform is on sale now, following a successful beta program with selected customers. The units could be ordered via the Contact Form.

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