[Commotion-dev] FYI: Serval & OpenBTS integration

[Jeremy Lakeman]

On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 6:28 PM, Alexander Chemeris
<alexander.chemeris at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Jeremy,
>
> Good work. Could you answer to a few questions from the OpenBTS side, please:
>
> How does an OpenBTS user know his number? Do you send a welcome SMS
> with a number on registration?

That's something we haven't changed from the default install. This
setup still uses the same database for local number registrations via
the web UI or SMS message.

> And what will happen with the number if a user moves to another
> OpenBTS base station?

We've mainly been assuming that the BTS boxes don't trust each other
and might be administered independently.
Though if a number of boxes did trust each other, they could use our
rhizome file transport to share SIM card details and last known
location, even if the network is not always available.
The basic pieces we've built could probably be adapted into this kind
of deployment with some scripting and changes to the dialplan.

> Do you think there are benefits of using Serval DNA in a pure OpenBTS
> multi-site installations, i.e. without other non-OpenBTS Serval
> devices?

With no single point of failure, one BTS box could still allow local
phone calls and any two boxes could form a working network.
Though we still have a lot of work to do, improving codec support and
our routing protocol. With servald handling the network routing and
packet delivery, the network layer has the potential to carry more
simultaneous calls over a wifi network.
We'll need to do a lot more testing to see how well that claim pans
out in practice.

> Does Serval DNA works well with thousands of users?

Good question, no idea. There will probably be scalability issues
we'll need to deal with so we don't flood a large network just trying
to resolve phone numbers. Probably some kind of election process to
pick a small number of network nodes to collect and search the entire
phone directory.

> Does Serval support SMS messages?

We have a text messaging solution for android, where we can assume
that one identity is only reachable via one instance of the software.
We'd need to build something a bit different to deliver messages to
users roaming between BTS boxes. We haven't tackled that yet, but we
might get around to it eventually.

> On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 9:37 AM, Jeremy Lakeman
> <Jeremy.Lakeman at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I've recently finished setting up a second OpenBTS box here in the
>> lab. Getting everything up and running was a relatively painless
>> process.
>>
>> I've written some very rough notes on the process for calling to and
>> from serval phones, that can be found here;
>> https://github.com/servalproject/serval-dna/blob/master/doc/OpenBts-setup.md
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Regards,
> Alexander Chemeris.
> CEO, Fairwaves LLC / ООО УмРадио
> http://fairwaves.ru